UC-NRLF 


THE  LIBRARY  OF 
USEFUL  STORIES 


"V 


THE  STORY  OF 


i 


GEOGRAPHIC 

B 
JOSEPH 


L  DISCOVERY 

Y 
JACOBS 


THE 

LIBRARY   OF   USEFUL  STORIES 


Arms  granted  to  Sebastian  Del  Cano,  Captain 

of  the  Victoria,  the  first  vessel  that 

circumnavigated  the  Glohe. 


tF*r  a  description,  set  p.  xi6.] 


the  story  of 
Geographical  Discovery 

HOW  THE  WO^ILD  BECAME  KNOWN 
BY 

JOSEPH  JACOBS 

IVITH    TWENTY-FOUR  MAPS,  ETC. 


NEW  YORK  AND   LONDON 

D.    APPLETON    AND    COMPANY 

1916 


Copyright,  1898,  1902,  1915 
By  D.  APPLETON  AND  COMPANY 


PREFACE. 


The  explorer  and  discoverer  holds  a  unique 
place  in  history.  The  fame  of  the  statesman  or 
the  soldier  who  controls  or  decides  the  fate  of  a 
nation  may  decline  and  disappear  outside  the 
boundaries  of  his  own  land.  Except  to  his 
own  countrymen  his  memory  may  endure  only  as 
a  name,  his  deeds  be  forgotten.  But  the  ex- 
plorer and  his  achievements  belong  to  the  world 
at  large.  His  exploits  belong  to  the  romance  of 
history  and  exercise  a  peculiar  fascination  over 
the  minds  of  men.  Those  hardy  and  adven- 
turous spirits  who  have  extended  the  boundaries 
of  the  known  world  have  been  the  popular  heroes 
of  all  time  and  posterity  is  generous  in  its  appre- 
ciation of  their  contributions  to  the  progress  of 
civilization. 

The  romance  of  exploration  and  geographical 
discovery  is  now  completely  written.  The  North 
and  South  Poles  offered  the  last  of  the  great 
adventures  which  the  unknown  regions  of  the 

5 


359323 


6  PREFACE. 

earth  set  before  the  ambition  and  daring  of  ex- 
plorers. Both  were  achieved  within  three  years 
of  each  other,  the  North  Pole  by  Peary  in  April, 
1909,  and  the  South  Pole  by  Amundsen  in  De- 
cember, 191 1,  and  by  Scott  a  month  later.  Large 
areas  of  the  earth's  surface,  in  Asia,  Africa, 
South  America  and  the  polar  regions  remain 
practically  unknown  and  undeveloped.  They  will 
continue  to  attract  the  explorer  for  detailed  ex- 
amination, but  his  discoveries  will  have  little  of 
the  appeal  to  the  popular  mind  of  the  great 
achievements  of  the  past. 

This  little  book  tells  the  story  of  geograph- 
ical discovery  from  the  earliest  times.  Beginning 
with  the  spread  of  conquest  in  the  ancient  world, 
the  science  of  geography  languished  during  the 
Dark  Ages,  to  be  revived  by  the  travels  of  Marco 
Polo  and  other  mediaeval  travellers.  From 
Prince  Henry  the  Navigator  and  Columbus  to 
Peary  and  Scott,  the  story  is  one  of  steady  prog- 
ress and  of  unfailing  interest.  An  appendix* 
gives  a  survey  of  the  annals  of  geographical 
discovery  for  twenty-five  centuries. 

July,  1915, 


CONTENTS. 


CHAPTER  WAOn 

Preface .        5 

List  of  Maps  and  Illustrations  ...       9 

Introduction 13 

I.  The  World  as  Known  to  the  Ancients    .      17 
II.  The  Spread  of  Conquest  in  the  Ancient 

World 33 

'-'III.  Geography  in  the  Dark  Ages       ...      43 
•IV.  Medieval  Travels— Marco  Polo,  Ibn  Ba- 

TUTA 63 

V.  Roads  and  Commerce 74 

J/^I.  To    THE     Indies     Eastward  —  Portuguese 
Route  —  Prince    Henry    and    Vasco    Da 

Gama 84 

VII.  To  THE  Indies   Westv/ard— Spanish  Route 
*  — Columbus  and  Magellan  ....      98 

VIII.  To    THE     Indies     Northwards  —  English, 

French,  Dutch,  and  Russian  Routes       .     119 
IX.  The  Partition  of  America     ....     128 
X.  Australia   and   the   South    Seas — Tasman 

AND  Cook 139 

XI.  Exploration  and    Partition    of    Africa — 

Park,  Livingstone,  and  Stanley       .        .     153 
XII.  The  Poles— Franklin,  Ross,  Nordenskiold, 

Nansen,  Peary,  Amundsen,  and  Scott       ,    169 
Annals  of  Piscqverv      ,       ,       .       .       ,    isd 

7 


LIST  OF   MAPS  AND   ILLUSTRATIONS. 


Coat-of-arms  of  Del  Cano  (from  Guillemard,  Magellan. 
By  kind  permission  of  Messrs.  Phillips.)  For  the  blazon,  see 
pp.  1 16-17 Frontispiece 

The  Earliest  Map  of  the  World  (from  the  Rev.  C.  J. 

Ball's  Bible  Illustrations^  1898). — This  is  probably  of  the 
eighth  century  B.C.,  and  indicates  the  Babylonian  view  of  the 
world  surrounded  by  the  ocean,  which  is  indicated  by  the 
parallel  circles,  and  traversed  by  the  Euphrates,  which  is  seen 
meandering  through  the  middle,  with  Babylon,  the  great  city, 
crossing  it  at  the  top.  Beyond  the  ocean  are  seven  successive 
projections  of  land,  possibly  indicating  the  Babylonian  knowl- 
edge of  surrounding  countries  beyond  the  Euxine  and  the  Red 
Sea Page  20 

The  World  according  to  Ptolemy. — It  will  be  observed 
that  the  Greek  geographer  regarded  the  Indian  Ocean  as  a 
landlocked  body  of  water,  while  he  appears  to  have  some 
knowledge  of  the  sources  of  the  Nile.  The  general  tendency 
of  the  map  is  to  extend  Asia  very  much  to  the  east,  which  led 
to  the  miscalculation  encouraging  Columbus  to  discover 
America Page  29 

The  Roman  Roads  of  Europe  (drawn  specially  for  this 
work). — These  give  roughly  the  limits  within  which  the  inland 
geographical  knowledge  of  the  ancients  reach  some  degrees  of 
accuracy Page  41 

Geographical  Monsters  (from  an  early  edition  of  Mande- 
ville's  Travels). — Most  of  the  mediaeval  maps  were  dotted 
over  with  similar  monstrosities     ....        P«|;e  46 

9 


lO  LIST  OF  MAPS  AND  ILLUSTRATIONS. 

The  Hereford  Map. — This,  one  of  the  best  known  of 
mediaeval  maps,  was  drawn  by  Richard  of  Aldingham  about 
1307.  Like  most  of  these  maps,  it  has  the  east  with  the 
terrestrial  paradise  at  the  top,  and  Jerusalem  is  represented 
as  the  centre Page  48 

Peutinger  Table,  Western  Purt.— This  is  the  only 
Roman  map  extant  ;  it  gives  lines  of  roads  from  the  eastern 
shores  of  Britain  to  the  Adriatic  Sea.  It  is  really  a  kind  of 
bird's-eye  view  taken  from  the  African  coast.  The  Mediter- 
ranean runs  as  a  thin  strip  through  the  lower  part  of  the  map. 
The  lower  section  joins  on  to  the  upper        .         .         Page  51 

The  World  according  to  Ibn  Haukal  (from  Lelewel, 
Geographie  du  mon  age). — This  map,  like  most  of  the  Arabian 
maps,  has  the  south  at  the  top.  It  is  practically  only  a  dia- 
gram, and  is  thus  similar  to  the  Hereford  Map  in  general 
form. — Misr=  Egypt,  Fars=Persia,  Andalus=Spain    Page  57 

Coast-line  of  the  Mediterranean  (from  the  Portulano 
of  Dulcert,  1339,  given  in  Nordenskiold  Facsimile  Atlas). — To 
illustrate  the  accuracy  with  which  mariners'  charts  gave  the 
coast-lines  as  contrasted  with  the  merely  symbolical  represen- 
tation of  other  mediaeval  maps      ....         Page  61 

Fra  Mauro  Map,  1457  (from  Lelewel,  loc.  cit). — Here, 
as  usual,  the  south  is  placed  at  the  top  of  the  map.  Besides 
the  ordinary  mediaeval  conceptions,  Fra  Mauro  included  the 
Portuguese  discoveries  along  the  coast  of  Africa  up  to  his 
time,  1457 Page  70 

Portuguese  Discoveries  in  Africa  (from  E.  J.  Payne, 
European  Colonies,  1877). — Giving  the  successive  points 
reached  by  the  Portuguese  navigators  during  the  fifteenth 
century Page  87 

Portuguese  Indies  (from  Payne,  loc.  cit.) — All  the  ports 
mentioned  in  ordinary  type  were  held  by  the  Portuguese  in 
the  sixteenth  century Page  95 

The  Toscanelli  Map  (from  Kretschmer,  Entdeckung 
Amerikas,  1892). — This  is  a  reconstruction  of  the  map  which 
Columbus  got  from  ;the  Italian  astronomer  and  cartographer 


LIST   OF  MAPS  AND  ILLUSTRATIONS.  II 

Toscanelli  and  used  to  guide  him  in  his  voyage  across  the 
Atlantic.  Its  general  resemblance  to  the  Behaim  globe  will 
be  remarked Page  loo 

The  Behaim  Globe. — This  gives  the  information  about 
the  world  possessed  in  1492,  just  as  Columbus  was  starting, 
and  is  mainly  based  upon  the  map  of  Toscanelli,  which  served 
as  his  guide.  It  will  be  observed  that  there  is  no  other  con- 
tinent between  Spain  and  Zipangu  or  Japan,  while  the  fabled 
islands  of  St.  Brandan  and  Antilia  are  represented  bridging 
the  expanse  between  the  Azores  and  Japan         .         Page  104 

Amerigo  Vespucci  (from  Fiske's  School  History  of  the 
United  States,  by  kind  permission  of  Messrs.  Houghton, 
Mifflin  &  Co.) Page  no 

Ferdinand  Magellan  (from  Fiske's  School  History  of  the 
United  States,  by  kind  permission  of  Messrs.  Houghton, 
Mifflin  &  Co.)      .         .         .        .         .         .         •         Page  113 

Map  of  the  World,  from  the  Ptolemy  Edition  of  1548 
(after  Kretschmer's  Entdeckungsgeschichte  Amerikas). — It  will 
be  observed  that  Mexico  is  supposed  to  be  joined  on  to  Asia, 
and  that  the  North  Pacific  was  not  even  known 
to  exist Page  117 

Russian  Asia  (after  the  Atlas  published  by  the  Russian 
Academy  of  Sciences  in  1737,  by  kind  permission  of  Messrs. 
Hachette).     Japan  is  represented  as  a  peninsula.        Page  125 

Australia  as  known  in  1745  (from  D'Anville's  Atlas,  by 
kind  permission  of  Messrs.  Hachette). — It  will  be  seen  that 
the  Northern  and  Western  coasts  were  even  by  this  time 
tolerably  well  mapped  out,  leaving  only  the  eastern  coast  to 
be  explored  by  Cook Page  140 

Australia,  showing  routes  of  explorations  (prepared 
specially  for  the  present  volume).  The  names  of  the  chief 
explorers  are  given  at  the  top  of  the  map    .         .         Page  151 

Africa  as  known  in  1676  (from  Dapper's  Atlas), — This 
includes  a  knowledge  of  most  of  the  African  rivers  and  lakes 
due  to  the  explorations  of  the  Portuguese  .       »       Page  z$$ 


la         LIST  OF  MAPS  AND  ILLUSTRATIONS. 

Africa  (made  specially  for  this  volume,  to  show  chief  ex- 
plorations and  partition). — The  names  of  the  explorers  are 
given  at  the  foot  of  the  map  itself      .        .        .        Page  i6i 

North  Polar  Regions,  Western  Half  (prepared 
specially  for  the  present  volume  from  the  Citizen's  Atlas,  by 
kind  permission  of  Messrs.  Bartholomew). — This  gives  the 
results  ot  the  discoveries  due  to  Franklin  expeditions  and 
most  of  the  searchers  after  the  North-West 
Passage        ........         Page  175 

North  Polar  Regions,  Eastern  Half. — This  gives  the 
Siberian  coast  investigated  by  the  Russians  and  Nordenskiold, 
as  well  as  Nansen's  Farthest  North  .         Page  179 


THE  STORY  OF 
GEOGRAPHICAL   DISCOVERY. 


INTRODUCTION. 

How  was  the  world  discovered  ?  That  is  to 
say,  how  did  a  certain  set  of  men  who  lived 
round  the  Mediterranean  Sea,  and  had  acquired 
the  art  of  recording  what  each  generation  had 
learned,  become  successively  aware  of  the  other 
parts  of  the  globe  ?  Every  part  of  the  earth, 
so  far  as  we  know,  has  been  inhabited  by  man 
during  the  five  or  six  thousand  years  in  which 
Europeans  have  been  storing  up  their  knowl- 
edge, and  all  that  time  the  inhabitants  of  each 
part,  of  course,  were  acquainted  with  that  par- 
ticular part:  the  Kamtschatkans  knew  Kamts- 
chatka,  the  Greenlanders,  Greenland;  the  various 
tribes  of  North  American  Indians  knew,  at  any 
rate,  that  part  of  America  over  which  they 
wandered,  long  before  Columbus,  as  we  say, 
"  discovered  "  it. 

Very  often  these  savages  not  only  know  their 
own  country,  but  can  express  their  knowledge 
in  maps  of  very  remarkable  accuracy.  Cortes 
traversed  over  looo  miles  through  Central 
America,  guided  only  by  a  calico  map  of  a  local 
cacique.  An  Eskimo  named  Kalliherey  drew 
out,  from  his  own  knowledge  of  the  coast 
between    Smith   Channel  and  Cape  York,  a  map 

13 


14     THE  STORY  OF  GEOGRAPHICAL  DISCOVERY. 

of  it,  varying  only  in  minute  details  from  the 
Admiralty  chart.  A  native  of  Tahiti,  named 
Tupaia,  drew  out  for  Cook  a  map  of  the  Pacific, 
extending  over  forty-five  degrees  of  longitude 
(nearly  3000  miles),  giving  the  relative  size  and 
position  of  the  main  islands  over  that  huge  tract 
of  ocean.  Almost  all  geographical  discoveries 
by  Europeans  have,  in  like  manner,  been  brought 
about  by  means  of  guides,  who  necessarily  knew 
the  country  which  their  European  masters  wished 
to  "  discover." 

What,  therefore,  we  mean  by  the  history  of 
geographical  discovery  is  the  gradual  bringing 
to  the  knowledge  of  the  nations  of  civilisa- 
tion surrounding  the  Mediterranean  Sea  the 
vast  tracts  of  land  extending  in  all  directions 
from  it.  There  are  mainly  two  divisions  of 
this  history — the  discovery  of  the  Old  World 
and  that  of  the  New,  including  Australia  under 
the  latter  term.  Though  we  speak  of  geo- 
graphical discovery,  it  is  really  the  discovery 
of  new  tribes  of  men  that  we  are  thinking  of. 
It  is  only  quite  recently  that  men  have  sought 
for  knowledge  about  lands,  apart  from  the  men 
who  inhabit  them.  One  might  almost  say  that 
the  history  of  geographical  discovery,  properly 
so  called,  begins  with  Captain  Cook,  the  motive 
of  whose  voyages  was  purely  scientific  curiosity. 
But  before  his  time  men  wanted  to  know  one 
another  for  two  chief  reasons :  they  wanted  to 
conquer,  or  they  wanted  to  trade ;  or  perhaps 
we  could  reduce  the  motives  to  one — they 
wanted  to  conquer,  because  they  wanted  to 
trade.  In  our  own  day  we  have  seen  a  remark- 
able mixture  of  all  three  motives,  resulting  in 
the   European  partition  of   Africa — perhaps   the 


INTRODUCTION.  15 

most  remarkable  event  of  the  latter  end  of  the 
nineteenth  century.  Speke  and  Burton,  Living- 
stone and  Stanley,  investigated  the  interior  from 
love  of  adventure  and  of  knowledge  ;  then  came 
the  great  chartered  trading  companies;  and, 
finally,  the  governments  to  which  these  belong 
have  assumed  responsibility  for  the  territories 
thus  made  known  to  the  civilised  world.  Within 
forty  years  the  map  of  Africa,  which  was  prac- 
tically a  blank  in  the  interior,  and,  as  will  be 
shown,  was  better  known  in  1680  than  in  1850, 
has  been  filled  up  almost  completely  by  re- 
searches due  to  motives  of  conquest,  of  trade,  or 
of  scientific  curiosity. 

In  its  earlier  stages,  then,  the  history  of 
geographical  discovery  is  mainly  a  history  of 
conquest,  and  what  we  shall  have  to  do  will  be 
to  give  a  short  history  of  the  ancient  world, 
from  the  point  of  view  of  how  that  world  be- 
came known.  *'  Became  known  to  whom  ?  " 
you  may  ask ;  and  we  must  determine  that 
question  first.  We  might,  of  course,  take  the 
earliest  geographical  work  known  to  us — the 
tenth  chapter  of  Genesis — and  work  out  how 
the  rest  of  the  world  became  known  to  the 
Israelites  when  they  became  part  of  the  Roman 
Empire;  but  in  history  all  roads  lead  to  Rome 
or  away  from  it,  and  it  is  more  useful  for  every 
purpose  to  take  Rome  as  our  centre-point. 
Yet  Rome  only  came  in  as  the  heir  of  earlier 
empires  that  spread  the  knowledge  of  the  earth 
and  man  by  conquest  long  before  Rome  was  of 
importance ;  and  even  when  the  Romans  were 
the  masters  of  all  this  vast  inheritance,  they  had 
not  themselves  the  ability  to  record  the  geo- 
graphical knowledge  thus  acquired,  and  it  is  to  a 


1 6    THE  STORY  OF  GEOGRAPHICAL  DISCOVERY. 

Greek  named  Ptolemy,  a  professor  of  the  great 
university  of  Alexandria,  to  whom  we  owe  our 
knowledge  of  how  much  the  ancient  world  knew 
of  the  earth.  It  will  be  convenient  to  determine 
this  first,  and  afterwards  to  sketch  rapidly  the 
course  of  historical  events  which  led  to  the 
knowledge  which  Ptolemy  records. 

In  the  Middle  Ages,  much  of  this  knowledge, 
like  all  other,  was  lost,  and  we  shall  have  to 
record  how  knowledge  was  replaced  by  imagina- 
tion and  theory.  The  true  inheritors  of  Greek 
science  during  that  period  were  the  Arabs,  and 
the  few  additions  to  real  geographical  knowledge 
at  that  time  were  due  to  them,  except  in  so 
far  as  commercial  travellers  and  pilgrims  brought 
a  more  intimate  knowledge  of  Asia  to  the 
West. 

The  discovery  of  America  forms  the  be- 
ginning of  a  new  period,  both  in  modern 
history  and  in  modern  geography.  In  the 
four  hundred  years  that  have  elapsed  since 
then,  more  than  twice  as  much  of  the  inhabited 
globe  has  become  known  to  civilised  man  than 
in  the  preceding  four  thousand  years.  The 
result  is  that,  except  for  a  few  patches  of  Africa, 
South  America,  and  round  the  Poles,  man 
knows  roughly  what  are  the  physical  resources 
of  the  world  he  inhabits,  and,  except  for  minor 
details,  the  history  of  geographical  discovery  is 
practically  at  an  end. 

Besides  its  interest  as  a  record  of  war  and  ad- 
venture, this  history  gives  the  successive  stages 
by  which  modern  men  have  been  made  what  they 
are.  The  longest  known  countries  and  peoples 
have,  on  the  whole,  had  the  deepest  influence  in 
the  forming  of  the  civilised  character.     Nor  is  the 


THE  WORLD   AS   KNOWN   TO  THE   ANCIENTS.     17 

practical  utility  of  tliis  study  less  important.  The 
way  in  which  the  world  has  been  discovered  de- 
termines now-a-days  the  world's  history.  The 
great  problems  of  the  twentieth  century  will  have 
immediate  relation  to  the  discoveries  of  America, 
of  Africa,  and  of  Australia.  In  all  these  problems, 
English  speaking  peoples  will  have  most  to  say 
and  to  do,  and  the  history  of  geographical  dis- 
covery is,  therefore,  of  immediate  and  immense 
interest  to  them. 

[A  uthorities  :  Cooley,  History  of  Maritime  and  Inland 
Discoveries,  3  vols.,  1 831  ;  Vivien  de  Saint  Martin,  Histoire 
de  la  Geographie,  1873.] 


CHAPTER  I. 

THE    WORLD    AS    KNOWN    TO    THE    ANCIENTS. 

Before  telling  how  the  ancients  got  to  know 
that  part  of  the  world  with  which  they  finally 
became  acquainted  when  the  Roman  Empire  was 
at  its  greatest  extent,  it  is  as  well  to  get  some  idea 
of  the  successive  stages  of  their  knowledge,  leaving 
for  the  next  chapter  the  story  of  how  that  knowl- 
edge was  obtained.  As  in  most  branches  of  or- 
ganised knowledge,  it  is  to  the  Greeks  that  we 
owe  our  acquaintance  with  ancient  views  of  this 
subject.  In  the  early  stages  they  possibly  learned 
something  from  the  Phoenicians,  who  were  the 
great  traders  and  sailors  of  antiquity,  and  who 
coasted  alongthe  Mediterranean,  ventured  through 
the  Straits  of  Gibraltar,  and  traded  with  the  Brit- 
ish Isles,  which  they  visited  for  the  tin  found  in 


1 8     THE   STORY   OF  GEOGRAPHICAL   DISCOVERY. 

Cornwall.  It  is  even  said  that  one  of  their  ad- 
mirals, at  the  command  of  Necho,  king  of  Egypt 
circumnavigated  Africa,  for  Herodotus  reports 
that  on  the  hohieward  voyage  the  sun  set  in  the 
sea  on  the  right  hand.  But  the  Phoenicians  kept 
their  geographical  knowledge  to  themselves  as  a 
trade  secret,  and  the  Greeks  learned  but  little 
from  them. 

Theiirst  glimpse  that  we  have  of  the  notions 
which  the  Greeks  possessed  of  the  shape  and  the 
inhabitants  of  the  earth  is  afforded  by  the  poems 
passing  under  the  name  of  Homer.  These  poems 
show  an  intimate  knowledge  of  Northern  Greece 
and  of  the  western  coasts  of  Asia  Minor,  some 
acquaintance  with  Egypt,  Cyprus,  and  Sicily ;  but 
all  the  rest,  even  of  the  Eastern  Mediterranean, 
is  only  vaguely  conceived  by  their  author.  Where 
he  does  not  know  he  imagines,  and  some  of  his 
imaginings  have  had  a  most  important  influence 
upon  the  progress  of  geographical  knowledge. 
Thus  he  conceives  of  the  world  as  being  a  sort  of 
flat  shield,  with  an  extremely  wide  river  surround- 
ing it,  known  as  Ocean.  The  centre  of  this  shield 
was  at  Delphi,  which  was  regarded  as  the  "  navel  " 
of  the  inhabited  world.  According  to  Hesiod, 
who  is  but  little  later  than  Homer,  up  in  the  far 
north  were  placed  a  people  known  as  the  Hyper- 
boreani,  or  those  who  dwelt  at  the  back  of  the 
north  wind  ;  whilst  a  corresponding  place  in  the 
south  was  taken  by  the  Abyssinians.  All  these 
^our  conceptions  had  an  important  influence  upon 
the  views  that  men  had  of  the  world  up  to  times 
comparatively  recent.  Homer  also  mentioned  the 
pigmies  as  living  in  Africa.  These  were  regarded 
as  fabulous,  till  they  were  re-discovered  by  Dr. 
Schweinfurth  and  Mr.  Stanley  in  our  own  time. 


THE  WORLD  AS   KNOWN   TO   THE  ANCIENTS.     19 

It  is  probably  from  the  Babylonians  that  the 
Greeks  obtained  the  idea  of  an  all -encircling 
ocean.  Inhabitants  of  Mesopotamia  would  find 
themselves  reaching  the  ocean  in  almost  any  di- 
rection in  which  they  travelled,  either  the  Caspian, 
the  Black  Sea,  the  Mediterranean,  or  the  Persian 
Gulf.  Accordingly,  the  oldest  map  of  the  world 
which  has  been  found  is  one  accompanying  a 
cuneiform  inscription,  and  representing  the  plain 
of  Mesopotamia  with  the  Euphrates  flowing 
through  it,  and  the  whole  surrounded  by  two  con- 
centric  circles,  which  are  named  briny  waters. 
Outside  these,  however,  are  seven  detached  islets, 
possibly  representing  the  seven  zones  or  climates 
into  which  the  world  was  divided  according  to 
the  ideas  of  the  Babylonians,  though  afterwards 
they  resorted  to  the  ordinary  four  cardinal  points. 
What  was  roughly  true  of  Babylonia  did  not  in 
any  way  answer  to  the  geographical  position  of 
Greece,  and  it  is  therefore  probable  that  in  the 
first  place  they  obtained  their  ideas  of  the  sur- 
rounding ocean  from  the  Babylonians. 

It  was  after  the  period  of  Homer  and  Hesiod 
that  the  first  great  expansion  of  Greek  knowledge 
about  the  world  began,  through  the  extensive 
colonisation  which  was  carried  on  by  the  Greeks 
around  the  Eastern  Mediterranean.  Even  to  this 
day  the  natives  of  the  southern  part  of  Italy  speak 
a  Greek  dialect,  owing  to  the  wide  extent  of  Greek 
colonies  in  that  country,  which  used  to  be  called 
"  Magna  Grecia,"  or  "  Great  Greece."  Marseilles 
was  also  one  of  the  Greek  colonies  (600  B.C.), 
which,  in  its  turn,  sent  out  other  colonies  along 
the  Gulf  of  Lyons.  In  the  East,  too,  Greek  cities 
were  dotted  along  the  coast  of  the  Black  Sea,  one 
of  which,  Byzantium,  was  destined  to  be  of  world- 


20     THE  STORY  OF   GEOGRAPHICAL   DISCOVERY. 


The  earliest  map  of  the  Wohd. 


THE   WORLD   AS   KNOWN   TO  THE   ANCIENTS.      21 

historic  importance.  So,  too,  in  North  Africa, 
and  among  the  islands  of  the  ^gean  Sea,  the 
Greeks  colonised  throughout  the  sixth  and  fifth 
centuries  b.  c,  and  in  almost  every  case  communi- 
cation was  kept  up  between  the  colonies  and  the 
mother-country. 

Now,  the  one  quality  which  has  made  the 
Greeks  so  distinguished  in  the  world's  history 
was  their  curiosity  ;  and  it  was  natural  that  they 
should  desire  to  know,  and  to  put  on  record, 
the  large  amount  of  information  brought  to 
the  mainland  of  Greece  from  the  innumerable 
Greek  colonies.  But  to  record  geographical 
knowledge,  the  first  thing  that  is  necessary  is  a 
map,  and  accordingly  it  is  a  Greek  philosopher 
named  Anaximander,  of  Miletus,  of  the  sixth 
century  b.  c,  to  whom  we  owe  the  invention  of 
map-drawing.  Now,  in  order  to  make  a  map  of 
one's  own  country,  little  astronomical  knowledge 
is  required.  As  we  have  seen,  savages  are  able 
to  draw  such  maps;  but  when  it  comes  to 
describing  the  relative  positions  of  countries 
divided  from  one  another  by  seas,  the  problem 
is  not  so  easy.  An  Athenian  would  know 
roughly  that  Byzantium  (now  called  Constanti- 
nople) was  somewhat  to  the  east  and  to  the 
north  of  him,  because  in  sailing  thither  he  would 
have  to  sail  towards  the  rising  sun,  and  would 
find  the  climate  getting  colder  as  he  approached 
Byzantium.  So,  too,  he  might  roughly  guess  that 
Marseilles  was  somewhere  to  the  west  and  north 
of  him  ;  but  how  was  he  to  fix  the  relative  position 
of  Marseilles  and  Byzantium  to  one  another? 
Was  Marseilles  more  northerly  than  Byzantium  ? 
Was  it  very  far  away  from  that  city  ?  For 
though  it  took  longer  to  get  to   Marseilles,  thq 


2  2     THE  STORY  OF  GEOGRAPHICAL   DiSCOVERY. 

voyage  was  winding,  and  might  possibly  bring 
the  vessel  comparatively  near  to  Byzantium, 
though  there  might  be  no  direct  road  between 
the  two  cities.  There  was  one  rough  way  of 
determining  how  far  north  a  place  stood :  the 
very  slightest  observation  of  the  starry  heavens 
would  show  a  traveller  that  as  he  moved 
towards  the  north,  the  pole-star  rose  higher 
up  in  the  heavens.  How  much  higher,  could 
be  determined  by  the  angle  formed  by  a  stick 
pointing  to  the  pole-star,  in  relation  to  one 
held  horizontally.  If,  instead  of  two  sticks, 
we  cut  out  a  piece  of  metal  or  wood  to  fill  up 
the  enclosed  angle,  we  get  the  earliest  form  of 
the  sun-dial,  known  as  the  gnomon,  and  accord- 
ing to  the  shape  of  the  gnomon  the  latitude 
of  a  place  is  determined.  Accordingly,  it  is 
not  surprising  to  find  that  the  invention  of  the 
gnomon  is  also  attributed  to  Anaximander,  for 
without  some  such  instrument  it  would  have 
been  impossible  for  him  to  have  made  any 
map  worthy  of  the  name.  But  it  is  probable 
that  Anaximander  did  not  so  much  invent  as 
introduce  the  gnomon,  and,  indeed,  Herodotus 
expressly  states  that  this  instrument  was  de- 
rived from  the  Babylonians,  who  were  the 
earliest  astronomers,  so  far  as  we  know.  A 
curious  point  confirms  this,  for  the  measure- 
ment of  angles  is  by  degrees,  and  degrees  are 
divided  into  sixty  seconds,  just  as  minutes  are. 
Now  this  division  into  sixty  is  certainly  derived 
from  Babylonia  in  the  case  of  time  measurement, 
and  is  therefore  of  the  same  origin  as  regards  the 
measurement  of  angles. 

We    have   no    longer  any   copy    of  this   first 
map  of  th^  world   dr^wn   up   by  Anaximander, 


THE   WORLD   AS   KNOWN  TO  THE  ANCIENTS.      23 

but  there  is  little  doubt  that  it  formed  the 
foundation  of  a  similar  map  drawn  by  a 
fellow-townsman  of  Anaximander,  Hecat^us 
of  Miletus,  who  seems  to  have  written  the  first 
formal  geography.  Only  fragments  of  this  are 
extant,  but  from  them  we  are  able  to  see  that  it 
was  of  the  nature  of  a  periplus^  or  seaman's 
guide,  telling  how  many  days'  sail  it  was  from 
one  point  to  another,  and  in  what  direction.  We 
know  also  that  he  arranged  his  whole  subject 
into  two  books,  dealing  respectively  with  Europe 
and  Asia,  under  which  latter  term  he  included 
part  of  what  we  now  know  as  Africa.  From  the 
fragments  scholars  have  been  able  to  reproduce 
the  rough  outlines  of  the  map  of  the  world  as  it 
presented  itself  to  Hecatseus.  From  this  it  can 
be  seen  that  the  Homeric  conception  of  the  sur- 
rounding ocean  formed  a  chief  determining  feature 
in  Hecataeus's  map.  For  the  rest,  he  was 
acquainted  with  the  Mediterranean,  Red,  and 
Black  Seas,  and  with  the  great  rivers  Danube, 
Nile,  Euphrates,  Tigris,  and  Indus. 

The  next  great  name  in  the  history  of  Greek 
geography  is  that  of  Herodotus  of  Hal'car- 
nassus,  who  might  indeed  be  equally  well  called 
the  Father  of  Geography  as  the  Father  of  His- 
tory. He  travelled  much  in  Egypt,  Babylonia, 
Persia,  and  on  the  shores  of  the  Black  Sea, 
while  he  was  acquainted  with  Greece,  and  passed 
the  latter  years  of  his  life  in  South  Italy.  On  all 
these  countries  he  gave  his  fellow-citizens  accu- 
rate and  tolerably  full  information,  and  he  had 
diligently  collected  knowledge  about  countries 
in  their  neighbourhood.  In  particular  he  gives 
full  details  of  Scythia  (or  Southern  Russia),  and 
of  the  satrapies  and  royal  roads  of  Persia.     As  a 


24     THE   SlURY   OF  GEOGRAPHICAL   DISCOVERY. 

rule,  his  information  is  as  accurate  as  could  be 
expected  at  such  an  early  date,  and  he  rarely  tells 
marvellous  stories,  or  if  he  does,  he  points  out 
himself  their  untrustworthiness.  Almost  the 
only  traveller's  yarn  which  Herodotus  reports 
without  due  scepticism  is  that  of  the  ants  of  India 
that  were  bigger  than  foxes  and  burrowed  out 
gold  dust  for  their  ant-hill. 

One  of  the  stories  he  relates  is  of  interest, 
as  seeming  to  show  an  anticipation  of  one 
of  Mr.  Stanley's  journeys.  Five  young  men  of 
the  Nasamonians  started  from  Southern  Libya, 
W.  of  the  Soudan,  and  journeyed  for  many 
days  west  till  they  came  to  a  grove  of  trees, 
when  they  were  seized  by  a  number  of  men 
of  very  small  stature,  and  conducted  through 
marshes  to  a  great  city  of  black  men  of  the 
same  size,  through  which  a  large  river  flowed. 
This  Herodotus  identifies  with  the  Nile,  but, 
from  the  indication  of  the  journey  given  by  him, 
it  would  seem  more  probable  that  it  was  the 
Niger,  and  that  the  Nasamonians  had  visited 
Timbuctoo  !  Owing  to  this  statement  of  Herod- 
otus, it  was  for  long  thought  that  the  Upper  Nile 
flowed  east  and  west. 

After  Herodotus,  the  date  of  whose  history 
may  be  fixed  at  the  easily  remembered  number 
of  444  B.  c,  a  large  increase  of  knowledge  was 
obtained  of  the  western  part  of  Asia  by  the 
two  expeditions  of  Xenophon  and  of  Alexander, 
which  brought  the  familiar  knowledge  of  the 
Greeks  as  far  as  India.  But  besides  these 
military  expeditions  we  have  still  extant  several 
log-books  of  mariners,  which  might  have  added 
considerably  to  Greek  geography.  One  of  these 
tells   the   tale  of   an  expedition  of  the   Cartha- 


THE   WORLD  AS   KNOWN   TO  THE   ANCIENTS.      25 

ginian  admiral  named  Hanno,  down  the  western 
coast  of  Africa,  as  far  as  Sierra  Leone,  a  voyage 
which  was  not  afterwards  undertaken  for  sixteen 
hundred  years.  Hanno  brought  back  from  this 
voyage  hairy  skins,  which,  he  stated,  belonged 
to  men  and  women  whom  he  had  captured, 
and  who  were  known  to  the  natives  by  the 
name  of  Gorillas.  Another  log-book  is  that 
of  a  Greek  named  Scylax,  who  gives  the  sailing 
distances  between  nearly  all  ports  on  the  Medi- 
terranean and  Black  Seas,  and  the  number  of 
days  required  to  pass  from  one  to  another. 
From  this  it  would  seem  that  a  Greek  merchant 
vessel  could  manage  on  the  average  fifty  miles 
a  day.  Besides  this,  one  of  Alexander's 
admirals,  named  Nearchus,  learned  to  carry 
his  ships  from  the  mouth  of  the  Indus  to 
the  Arabian  Gulf.  Later  on,  a  Greek  sailor, 
Hippalus,  found  out  that  by  using  the  monsoons 
at  the  appropriate  times,  he  could  sail  direct 
from  Arabia  to  India  without  laboriously  coast- 
ing along  the  shores  of  Persia  and  Beluchistan, 
and  in  consequence  the  Greeks  gave  his  name 
to  the  monsoon.  For  information  about  India 
itself,  the  Greeks  were,  for  a  long  time,  depen- 
dent upon  the  account  of  Megasthenes,  an  am- 
bassador sent  by  Seleucus,  on'e  of  Alexander's 
generals,  to  the  Indian  king  of  the  Punjab. 

While  knowledge  was  thus  gained  of  the  East, 
additional  information  was  obtained  about  the 
north  of  Europe  by  the  travels  of  one  Pytheas, 
a  native  of  Marseilles,  who  flourished  about  the 
time  of  Alexander  the  Great  (^^;^  b.  c),  and 
he  is  especially  interesting  to  us  as  having  been 
the  first  civilised  person  who  can  be  identified 
as  having   visited   Britain.      He  seems  to  have 


26     THE   SrORY   OF   GEOGRAPHICAL   DISCOVERY. 

coasted  along  the  Bay  of  Biscay,  to  have  spent 
some  time  in  England, — which  he  reckoned  as 
40,000  stadia  (4000  miles)  in  circumference, 
— and  he  appears  also  to  have  coasted  along 
Belgium  and  Holland,  as  far  as  the  mouth  of 
the  Elbe.  Pytheas  is,  however,  chiefly  known 
in  the  history  of  geography  as  having  referred 
to  the  island  of  Thule,  which  he  described  as 
the  most  northerly  point  of  the  inhabited  earth, 
beyond  which  the  sea  became  thickened,  and 
of  a  jelly-like  consistency.  He  does  not  profess 
to  have  visited  Thule,  and  his  account  prob- 
ably refers  to  the  existence  of  drift  ice  near  the 
Shetlands. 

All  this  new  information  was  gathered  to- 
gether, and  made  accessible  to  the  Greek  reading 
world,  by  Eratosthenes,  librarian  of  Alex- 
andria (240-196  B.C.),  who  was  practically  the 
founder  of  scientific  geography.  He  was  the  first 
to  attempt  any  accurate  measurement  of  the  size 
of  the  earth,  and  of  its  inhabited  portion.  By 
his  time  the  scientific  men  of  Greece  had  become 
quite  aware  of  the  fact  that  the  earth  was  a 
globe,  though  they  considered  that  it  was  fixed 
in  space  at  the  centre  of  the  universe.  Guesses 
had  even  been  rnade  at  the  size  of  this  globe, 
Aristotle  fixing  its  circumference  at  400,000 
stadia  (or^  40,000  miles),  but  Eratosthenes  at- 
tempted a  more  accurate  measurement.  He 
compared  the  length  of  the  shadow  thrown  by 
the  sun  at  Alexandria  and  at  Syene,  near  the 
first  cataract  of  the  Nile,  which  he  assumed  to  be 
on  the  same  meridian  of  longitude,  and  to  be  at 
about  5000  stadia  (500  miles)  distance.  From 
the  difference  in  the  length  of  the  shadows  he 
deduced  that  this  distance  represented  gne-fiftieth 


THE  WORLD  AS   KNOWN   TO  THE   ANCIENTS.      27 

of  the  circumference  of  the  earth,  which  would 
accordingly  be  about  250,000  stadia,  or  25,000 
geographical  miles.  As  the  actual  circumference 
is  24,899  English  miles,  this  was  a  very  near 
approximation,  considering  the  rough  means 
Eratosthenes  had  at  his  disposal. 

Having  thus  estimated  the  size  of  the  earth, 
Eratosthenes  then  went  on  to  determine  the  size 
of  that  portion  which  the  ancients  considered  to 
be  habitable.  North  and  south  of  the  lands 
known  to  him,  Eratosthenes  and  all  the  ancients 
considered  to  be  either  too  cold  or  too  hot  to  be 
habitable  ;  this  portion  he  reckoned  to  extend  to 
38,000  stadia,  or  3800  miles.  In  reckoning  the 
extent  of  the  habitable  portion  from  east  to 
west,  Eratosthenes  came  to  the  conclusion  that 
from  the  Straits  of  Gibraltar  to  the  east  of  India 
was  about  80,000  stadia,  or,  roughly  speaking,  one- 
third  of  the  earth's  surface.  The  remaining  two- 
thirds  were  supposed  to  be  covered  by  the  ocean, 
and  Eratosthenes  prophetically  remarked  that  "if 
it  were  not  that  the  vast  extent  of  the  Atlantic 
Sea  rendered  it  impossible,  one  might  almost 
sail  from  the  co-ast  of  Spain  to  that  of  India 
along  the  same  parallel."  Sixteen  hundred  years 
later,  as  we  shall  see,  Columbus  tried  to  carry  out 
this  idea.  Eratosthenes  based  his  calculations  on 
two  fundamental  lines,  corresponding  in  a  way 
to  our  equator  and  meridian  of  Greenwich :  the 
first  stretched,  according  to  him,  from  Cape  St. 
Vincent,  through  the  Straits  of  Messina  and  the 
island  of  Rhodes,  to  Issus  (Gulf  of  Iskanderun) ; 
for  his  startmg-line  in  reckoning  north  and  south 
he  used  a  meridian  passing  through  the  First 
Cataract,  Alexandria,  Rhodes,  and  Byzantium. 

The   next  two   hundred  years  after   Eratos- 


2  8     THE  STORY  OF  GEOGRAPHICAL   DISCOVERY. 

thenes'  death  was  filled  up  by  the  spread  of  the 
Roman  Empire,  by  the  taking  over  by  the  Romans 
of  the  vast  possessions  previously  held  by  Alex- 
ander and  his  successors  and  by  the  Carthaginians, 
and  by  their  spread  into  Gaul,  Britain,  and  Ger- 
many. Much  of  the  increased  knowledge  thus 
obtained  was  summed  up  in  the  geographical 
work  of  Strabo,  who  wrote  in  Greek  about  20 
B.  c.  He  introduced  from  the  extra  knowledge 
thus  obtained  many  modifications  of  the  system 
of  Eratosthenes,  but,  on  the  whole,  kept  to  his 
general  conception  of  the  world.  He  rejected, 
however,  the  existence  of  Thule,  and  thus  made 
the  world  narrower;  while  he  recognised  the  exist- 
ence of  lerne,  or  Ireland,  which  he  regarded  as 
the  most  northerly  part  of  the  habitable  world, 
lying,  as  he  thought,  north  of  Britain. 

Between  the  time  of  Strabo  and  that  of  Ptole- 
my, who  sums  up  all  the  knowledge  of  the  ancients 
about  the  habitable  earth,  there  was  only  one  con- 
siderable addition  to  men's  acquaintance  with 
their  neighbours,  contained  in  a  seaman's  manual 
for  the  navigation  of  the  Indian  Ocean,  known  as 
the  Periplus  of  the  Erythraean  Sea.  This  gave 
very  full  and  tolerably  accurate  accounts  of  the 
coasts  from  Aden  to  the  mouth  of  the  Ganges, 
though  it  regarded  Ceylon  as  much  greater,  and 
more  to  the  south,  than  it  really  is;  but  it  also 
contains  an  account  of  the  more  easterly  parts  of 
Asia,  Indo-China,  and  China  itself,  "  where  the  silk 
comes  from."  This  had  an  important  influence 
on  the  views  of  Ptolemy,  as  we  shall  see,  and  in- 
directly helped  long  afterwards  to  the  discovery 
of  America. 

It  was  left  to  Ptolemy  of  Alexandria  to  sum 
up  for  the  ancient  world  all  the  knowledge  that 


30     THE  STORY  OF  GEOGRAPHICAL  DISCOVERY. 

had  been  accumulating  from  the  time  of  Erastos- 
thenes  to  his  own  day,  which  we  may  fix  at  about 
150  A.D.  He  took  all  the  information  he  could 
find  in  the  writings  of  the  preceding  four  hundred 
years,  and  reduced  it  all  to  one  uniform  scale  ;  for 
it  is  to  him  that  we  owe  the  invention  of  the 
method  and  the  names  of  latitude  and  longitude. 
Previous  writers  had  been  content  to  say  that  the 
distance  between  one  point  and  another  was  so 
many  stadia,  but  he  reduced  all  this  rough  reckon- 
ing to  so  many  degrees  of  latitude  and  longitude, 
from  fixed  lines  as  starting-points.  But,  unfor- 
tunately, all  these  reckonings  were  rough  calcula- 
tions, which  are  almost  invariably  beyond  the  truth; 
and  Ptolemy,  though  the  greatest  of  ancient  astron- 
omers, still  further  distorted  his  results  by  assum- 
ing that  a  degree  was  500  stadia,  or  50  geograph- 
ical miles.  Thus  when  he  found  in  any  of  his 
authorities  that  the  distance  between  one  port  and 
another  was  500  stadia,  he  assumed,  in  the  first 
place,  that  this  was  accurate,  and,  in  the  second, 
that  the  distance  between  the  two  places  was  equal 
to  a  degree  of  latitude  or  longitude,  as  the  case 
might  be.  Accordingly  he  arrived  at  the  result 
that  the  breadth  of  the  habitable  globe  was,  as  he 
put  it,  twelve  hours  of  longitude  (corresponding  to 
180°) — nearly  one-third  as  much  again  as  the  real 
dimensions  from  Spain  to  China.  The  consequence 
of  this  was  that  the  distance  from  Spain  to  China 
westward  was  correspondingly  diminished  by  sixty 
degrees  (or  nearly  4000  miles),  and  it  was  this 
error  that  ultimately  encouraged  Columbus  to 
attempt  his  epoch-making  voyage. 

Ptolemy's  errors  of  calculation  would  not  have 
been  so  extensive  but  that  he  adopted  a  method 
of  measurement  which  made  them  accumulative. 


THE   WORLD   AS   KNOWN   TO  THE   ANCIENTS.     3 1 

If  he  had  chosen  Alexandria  for  the  point  of  de- 
parture in  measuring  longitude,  the  errors  he  made 
when  reckoning  westward  would  have  been  coun- 
terbalanced by  those  reckoning  eastward,  and 
would  not  have  resulted  in  any  serious  distortion 
of  the  truth  ;  but  instead  of  this,  he  adopted  as  his 
point  of  departure  the  Fortunatae  Insulse,  or  Cana- 
ry Islands,  and  every  degree  measured  to  the  east 
of  these  was  one-fifth  too  great,  since  he  assumed 
that  it  was  only  fifty  miles  in  length.  I  may  men- 
tion that  so  great  has  been  the  influence  of  Ptole- 
my on  geography,  that,  up  to  the  middle  of  the 
eighteenth  century,  Ferro,  in  the  Canary  Islands, 
was  still  retained  as  the  zero-point  of  the  meridi- 
ans of  longitude. 

Another  point  in  which  Ptolemy's  system 
strongly  influenced  modern  opinion  was  his  de- 
parture from  the  previous  assumption  that  the 
world  was  surrounded  by  the  ocean,  derived  from 
Homer.  Instead  of  Africa  being  thus  cut  through 
the  middle  by  the  ocean,  Ptolemy  assumed,  pos- 
sibly from  vague  traditional  knowledge,  that 
Africa  extended  an  unknown  length  to  the  south, 
and  joined  on  to  an  equally  unknown  continent 
far  to  the  east,  which,  in  the  Latinised  versions  of 
his  astronomical  work,  was  termed  "  terra  aus- 
tralis  incognita,"  or  "the  unknown  southland." 
As,  by  his  error  with  regard  to  the  breadth  of  the 
earth,  Ptolemy  led  to  Columbus  ;  so,  by  his  mis- 
taken notions  as  to  the  "  great  south  land,"  he 
prepared  the  way  for  the  discoveries  of  Captain 
Cook.  But  notwithstanding  these  errors,  which 
were  due  partly  to  the  roughness  of  the  materials 
which  he  had  to  deal  with,  and  partly  to  scientific 
caution,  Ptolemy's  work  is  one  of  the  great  mon- 
uments of  human  industry  and  knowledge.     For 


32     THE  STORY  OF  GEOGRAPHICAL  DISCOVERY. 

the  Old  AVorld  it  remained  the  basis  of  geograph- 
ical knowledgfe  up  to  the  bes^inning  of  the  eight- 
eenth century,  just  as  his  astronomical  work  was 
only  finally  abolished  by  the  work  of  Newton. 
Ptolemy  has  thus  the  rare  distinction  of  being  the 
greatest  authority  on  two  important  departments 
of  human  knowledge — astronomy  and  geography 
— for  over  fifteen  hundred  years.  Into  the  details 
of  his  description  of  the  world  it  is  unnecessary 
to  go.  The  map  will  indicate  how  near  he  came 
to  the  main  outlines  of  the  Mediterranean,  of 
Northwest  Europe,  of  Arabia,  and  of  the  Black 
Sea.  Beyond  these  regions  he  could  only  depend 
upon  the  rough  indications  and  guesses  of  un- 
tutored merchants.  But  it  is  worth  while  refer- 
ring to  his  method  of  determining  latitude,  as  it 
was  followed  up  by  most  succeeding  geographers. 
Between  the  equator  and  the  most  northerly  point 
known  to  him,  he  divides  up  the  earth  into  hor- 
izontal strips,  called  by  him  "  climates,"  and 
determined  by  the  average  length  of  the  longest 
day  in  each.  This  is  a  very  ropgh  method  of 
determining  latitude,  but  it  was  probably,  in  most 
cases,  all  that  Ptolemy  had  to  depend  upon,  since 
the  measurement  of  angles  would  be  a  rare  ac- 
complishment even  in  modern  times,  and  would 
only  exist  among  a  few  mathematicians  and 
astronomers  in  Ptolemy's  days.  With  him  the 
history  of  geographical  knowledge  and  discovery 
in  the  ancient  world  closes. 

In  this  chapter  I  have  roughly  given  the 
names  and  exploits  of  the  Greek  men  of  science, 
who  summed  up  in  a  series  of  systematic  records 
the  knowledge  obtained  by  merchants,  by  soldiers, 
and  by  travellers  of  the  extent  of  the  world 
known  to  the  ancients.     Of  this  knowledge,  by 


THE   SPREAD   OF  CONQUEST.  ;^'^ 

far  the  largest  amount  was  gained,  not  by  syste- 
matic investigation  for  the  purpose  of  geography, 
but  by  miHtary  expeditions  for  the  purpose  of 
conquest.  We  must  now  retrace  our  steps,  and 
give  a  rough  review  of  the  various  stages  of  con- 
quest by  which  the  different  regions  of  the  Old 
World  became  known  to  the  Greeks  and  the 
Roman  Empire,  whose  knowledge  Ptolemy  sum- 
marises. 

[Authorities  :   Bunbury,  History  of  Ancient  Geography^  2 
vols.,  1879  ;  Tozer,  History  of  Ancient  Geography,  1897.] 


CHAPTER  II. 

THE    SPREAD    OF     CONQUEST    IN    THE 
ANCIENT    WORLD. 

In  a  companion  volume  of  this  series,  "The 
Story  of  Extinct  Civilisations  in  the  East,"  will 
be  found  an  account  of  the  rise  and  development 
of  the  various  nations  who  held  sway  over  the 
west  of  Asia  at  the  dawn  of  history.  Modern 
discoveries  of  remarkable  interest  have  enabled 
us  to  learn  the  condition  of  men  in  Asia  Minor 
as  early  as  4000  B.C.  All  these  early  civilisations 
existed  on  the  banks  of  great  rivers,  which  ren- 
dered the  land  fertile  through  which  they  passed. 

We  first  find  man  conscious  of  himself,  and 
putting  his  knowledge  on  record,  along  the  banks 
of  the  great  rivers  Nile,  Euphrates,  and  Tigris, 
Ganges  and  Yang-tse-Kiang.  But  for  our  pur- 
poses we  are  not  concerned  with  these  very  early 
stages  of  history.  The  Egyptians  got  to  know 
3 


34     THE  STORY  OF  GEOGRAPHICAL  DISCOVERY. 

something  of  the  nations  that  surrounded  them, 
and  so  did  the  Assyrians.  A  summary  of  similar 
knowledge  is  contained  in  the  list  of  tribes  given 
in  the  tenth  chapter  of  Genesis,  which  divides  all 
mankind,  as  then  known  to  the  Hebrews,  into 
descendants  of  Shem,  Ham,  and  Japhet — corre- 
sponding, roughly,  to  Asia,  Europe,  and  Africa. 
But  in  order  to  ascertain  how  the  Romans  ob- 
tained the  mass  of  information  which  was  sum- 
marised for  them  by  Ptolemy  in  his  great  work, 
we  have  merely  to  concentrate  our  attention  on 
the  remarkable  process  of  continuous  expansion 
which  ultimately  led  to  the  existence  of  the  Roman 
Empire. 

All  early  histories  of  kingdoms  are  practically 
of  the  same  type.  A  certain  tract  of  country  is 
divided  up  among  a  certain  number  of  tribes 
speaking  a  common  language,  and  each  of  these 
tribes  ruled  by  a  separate  chieftain.  One  of  these 
tribes  then  becomes  predominant  over  the  rest, 
through  the  skill  in  war  or  diplomacy  of  one  of 
its  chiefs,  and  the  whole  of  the  tract  of  country  is 
thus  organised  into  one  kingdom.  Thus  the  his- 
tory of  England  relates  how  the  kingdom  of  Wes- 
sex  grew  into  predominance  over  the  whole  of  the 
country  ;  that  of  France  tells  how  the  kings  who 
ruled  over  the  Isle  of  France  spread  their  rule 
over  the  rest  of  the  land  ;  the  history  of  Israel  is 
mainly  an  account  of  how  the  tribe  of  Judah 
obtained  the  hegemony  of  the  rest  of  the  tribes; 
and  Roman  history,  as  its  name  implies,  informs 
us  how  the  inhabitants  of  a  single  city  grew  to 
be  the  masters  of  the  whole  known  world.  But 
their  empire  had  been  prepared  for  them  by  a  long 
series  of  similar  expansions,  which  might  be  de- 
scribed as  the  successive  swallowing  up  of  empire 


THE  SPREAD   OF  CONQUEST.  35 

after  empire,  each  becoming  overgrown  in  the 
process,  till  at  last  the  series  was  concluded  by 
the  Romans  swallowing  up  the  whole.  It  was  this 
gradual  spread  of  dominion  which,  at  each  stage, 
increased  men's  knowledge  of  surrounding  nations, 
and  it  therefore  comes  within  our  province  to 
roughly  sum  up  these  stages,  as  part  of  the  story 
of  geographical  discovery. 

Regarded  from  the  point  of  view  of  geography, 
this  spread  of  man's  knowledge  might  be  com- 
pared to  the  growth  of  a  huge  oyster-shell,  and, 
from  that  point  of  view,  we  have  to  take  the 
north  of  the  Persian  Gulf  as  the  apex  of  the  shell, 
and  begin  with  the  Babylonian  Empire.  We  first 
have  the  kingdom  of  Babylon — which,  in  the  early 
stages,  might  be  best  termed  ChaldjEa — in  the 
south  of  Mesopotamia  (or  the  valley  between  the 
two  rivers,  Tigris  and  Euphrates),  which,  during 
the  third  and  second  millennia  before  our  era, 
spread  along  the  valley  of  the  Tigris.  But  in  the 
fourteenth  century  B.C.,  the  Assyrians  to  the  north 
of  it,  though  previously  dependent  upon  Babylon, 
conquered  it,  and,  after  various  vicissitudes,  estab- 
lished themselves  throughout  the  whole  of  Meso- 
potamia and  much  of  the  surrounding  lands.  In 
604  B.C.  the  capital  of  this  great  empire  was  moved 
once  more  to  Babylon,  so  that  in  the  last  stage,  as 
well  as  in  the  first,  it  may  be  called  Babylonia.  For 
purposes  of  distinction,  however,  it  will  be  as  well 
to  call  these  three  successive  stages  Chaldaea, 
Assyria,  and  Babylonia. 

Meanwhile,  immediately  to  the  east,  a  some- 
what similar  process  had  been  gone  through, 
though  here  the  development  was  from  north  to 
south,  the  Medes  of  the  north  developing  a  power- 
ful empire  in  the  north  of  Persia,  which  ultimately 


36     THE   STORY  OF  GEOGRAPHICAL  DISCOVERY. 

fell  into  the  hands  of  Cyrus  the  Great  in  546  b.c. 
He  then  proceeded  to  conquer  the  kingdom  of 
Lydia,  in  the  north-west  part  of  Asia  Minor,  which 
had  previously  inherited  the  dominions  of  the 
Hittites.  Finally  he  proceeded  to  seize  the  em- 
pire of  Babylonia,  by  his  successful  attack  on  the 
capital,  538  B.C.  He  extended  his  rule  nearly  as 
far  as  India  on  one  side,  and,  as  we  know  from 
the  Bible,  to  the  borders  of  Egypt  on  the  other. 
His  son  Cambyses  even  succeeded  in  adding  Egypt 
for  a  time  to  the  Persian  Empire.  The  oyster- 
shell  of  history  had  accordingly  expanded  to  in- 
clude almost  the  whole  of  Western  Asia. 

The  next  two  centuries  are  taken  up  in  uni- 
versal history  by  the  magnificent  struggle  of  the 
Greeks  against  the  Persian  Empire — the  most 
decisive  conflict  in  all  history,  for  it  determined 
whether  Europe  or  Asia  should  conquer  the  world. 
Hitherto  the  course  of  conquest  had  been  from 
east  to  west,  and  if  Xerxes'  invasion  had  been 
successful,  there  is  little  doubt  that  the  westward 
tendency  would  have  continued.  But  the  larger 
the  tract  of  country  which  an  empire  covers — 
especially  when  different  tribes  and  nations  are 
included  in  it — the  weaker  and  less  organised  it 
becomes.  Within  little  more  than  a  century  of 
the  death  of  Cyrus  the  Great  the  Greeks  discov- 
ered the  vulnerable  pomt  in  the  Persian  Empire, 
owing  to  an  expedition  of  ten  thousand  Greek  mer- 
cenaries under  Xenophon,  who  had  been  engaged 
by  Cyrus  the  younger  in  an  attempt  to  capture  the 
Persian  Empire  from  his  brother.  Cyrus  was 
slain,  401  B.C.,  but  the  ten  thousand,  under  the 
leadership  of  Xenophon,  were  enabled  to  hold  their 
own  against  all  the  attempts  of  the  Persians  to 
destroy  them,  and  found  their  way  back  to  Greece 


THE   SPREAD   OF   CONQUEST.  37 

Meanwhile  the  usual  process  had  been  going 
on  in  Greece  by  which  a  country  becomes  consol- 
idated. From  time  to  time  one  of  the  tribes  into 
which  that  mountainous  country  was  divided, 
obtained  supremacy  over  the  rest:  at  first  the 
Athenians,  owing  to  the  prominent  part  they  had 
taken  in  repelling  the  Persians;  then  the  Spartans, 
and  finally  the  Thebans.  But  on  the  northern 
frontiers  a  race  of  hardy  mountaineers,  the  Mace- 
donians, had  consolidated  their  power,  and,  under 
Philip  of  Macedon,  became  masters  of  all  Greece. 
Philip  had  learned  the  lesson  taught  by  the  suc- 
cessful retreat  of  the  ten  thousand,  and,  just 
before  his  death,  was  preparing  to  attack  the 
Great  King  (of  Persia)  with  all  the  forces  which 
his  supremacy  in  Greece  put  at  his  disposal.  His 
son  Alexander  the  Great  carried  out  Philip's  in- 
tentions. Within  twelve  years  (334-323  B.C.)  he 
had  conquered  Persia,Parthia,  India  (in  the  strict 
sense,  i.e.  the  valley  of  the  Indus),  and  Egypt. 
After  his  death  his  huge  empire  was  divided  up 
among  his  generals,  but,  except  in  the  extreme 
east,  the  whole  of  it  was  administered  on  Greek 
methods.  A  Greek-speaking  person  could  pass 
from  one  end  to  the  other  without  difficulty,  and 
we  can  understand  how  a  knowledge  of  the  whole 
tract  of  country  between  the  Adriatic  and  the  Indus 
could  be  obtained  by  Greek  scholars.  Alexander 
founded  a  large  number  of  cities,  all  bearing  his 
name,  at  various  points  of  his  itinerary ;  but  of 
these  the  most  important  was  that  at  the  mouth 
of  the  Nile,  known  to  this  day  as  Alexandria. 
Here  was  the  intellectual  centre  of  the  whole 
Hellenic  world,  and  accordingly  it  was  here,  as 
we  have  seen,  that  Eratosthenes  first  wrote  down 
in  a  systematic  manner  all  the  knowledge  about 


38     THE   STORY   OF  GEOGRAPHICAL   DISCOVERY. 

the  habitable  earth  which  had  been  gained  mainly 
by  Alexander's  conquests. 

Important  as  was  the  triumphant  march  of 
Alexander  through  Western  Asia,  both  in  history 
and  in  geography,  it  cannot  be  said  to  have  added 
so  very  much  to  geographical  knowledge,  for 
Herodotus  was  roughly  acquainted  with  most  of 
the  country  thus  traversed,  except  towards  the 
east  of  Persia  and  the  north-west  of  India.  But 
the  itineraries  of  Alexander  and  his  generals  must 
have  contributed  more  exact  knowledge  of  the 
distances  between  the  various  important  centres 
of  population,  and  enabled  Eratosthenes  and  his 
successors  to  give  them  a  definite  position  on  their 
maps  of  the  world.  What  they  chiefly  learned 
from  Alexander  and  his  immediate  successors  was 
a  more  accurate  knowledge  of  North-West  India. 
Even  as  late  as  Strabo,  the  sole  knowledge  pos- 
sessed at  Alexandria  of  Indian  places  was  that 
given  by  Megasthenes,  the  ambassador  to  India 
in  the  third  century  B.C. 

Meanwhile,  in  the  western  portion  of  the  civi- 
lised world  a  similar  process  had  gone  on.  In 
the  Italian  peninsula  the  usual  struggle  had  gone 
on  between  the  various  tribes  inhabiting  it.  The 
fertile  plain  of  Lombardy  was  not  in  those  days 
regarded  as  belonging  to  Italy,  but  was  known  as 
Cisalpine  Gaul.  The  south  of  Italy,  as  we  have 
seen,  was  mainly  inhabited  by  Greek  colonists, 
and  was  called  Great  Greece.  Between  these 
tracts  of  country  the  Italian  territory  was  inhab- 
ited by  three  sets  of  federate  tribes — the  Etrurians, 
the  Samnites,  and  the  Latins.  During  the  230 
years  between  510  b.c.  and  280  B.C.  Rome  was 
occupied  in  obtaining  the  supremacy  among  these 
three  sets  of  tribes,  and  by  the  latter  date  may  be 


THE   SPREAD   OF   CONQUEST.  39 

regarded  as  having  consolidated  Central  Italy  into 
an  Italian  federation,  centralised  at  Rome.  At 
the  latter  date,  the  Greek  king,  Pyrrhus  of  Epirus, 
attempted  to  arouse  the  Greek  colonies  in  South- 
ern Italy  against  the  growing  power  of  Rome ;  but 
his  interference  only  resulted  in  extending  the 
Roman  dominion  down  to  the  heel  and  big  toe  of 
Italy. 

If  Rome  was  to  advance  farther,  Sicily  would 
be  the  next  step,  and  just  at  that  moment  Sicily 
was  being  threatened  by  the  other  great  power  of 
the  West — Carthage.  Carthage  was  the  most  im- 
portant of  the  colonies  founded  by  the  Phoenicians 
(probably  in  the  ninth  century  B.C.),  and  pursued 
in  the  Western  Mediterranean  the  policy  of  estab- 
lishing trading  stations  along  the  coast,  which  had 
distinguished  the  Phoenicians  from  their  first  ap- 
pearance in  history.  They  seized  all  the  islands 
in  that  division  of  the  sea,  or  at  any  rate  prevented 
any  other  nation  from  settling  in  Corsica,  Sar- 
dinia, and  the  Balearic  Isles.  In  particular,  Car- 
thage took  possession  of  the  western  part  of  Sicily, 
which  had  been  settled  by  sister  Phoenician  colo- 
nies. While  Rome  did  everything  in  its  power  to 
consolidate  its  conquests  by  admitting  the  other 
Italians  to  some  share  in  the  central  government, 
Carthage  only  regarded  its  foreign  possessions  as 
so  many  openings  for  trade.  In  fact,  it  dealt  with 
the  western  littoral  of  the  Mediterranean  some- 
thing like  the  East  India  Company  treated  the 
coast  of  Hindustan:  it  established  factories  at 
convenient  spots.  But  just  as  the  List  India 
Company  found  it  necessary  to  conquer  the  neigh- 
bouring territory  in  order  to  secure  peaceful  trade, 
so  Carthage  extended  its  conquests  all  down  the 
western  co^st  of  Africa  and  the  south-east  part  pf 


40     THE  STORY  OF   GEOGRAPHICAl.   DISCOVERY. 

Spain,  while  Rome  was  extending  into  Italy.  To 
continue  our  conchological  analogy,  by  the  time 
of  the  first  Punic  War  Rome  and  Carthage  had 
each  expanded  into  a  shell,  and  between  the  two 
intervened  the  eastern  section  of  the  island  of 
Sicily.  As  the  result  of  this,  Rome  became  mas- 
ter of  Sicily,  and  then  the  final  struggle  took  place 
with  Hannibal  in  the  second  Punic  War,  which  re- 
sulted in  Rome  becoming  possessed  of  Spain  and 
Carthage.  By  the  year  200  b.c.  Rome  was  prac- 
tically master  of  the  Western  Mediterranean, 
though  it  took  another  century  to  consolidate  its 
heritage  from  Carthage  in  Spain  and  Mauritania. 
During  that  century — the  second  before  our  era — 
Rome  also  extended  its  Italian  boundaries  to  the 
Alps  by  the  conquest  of  Cisalpine  Gaul,  which, 
however,  was  considered  outside  Italy,  from  which 
It  was  separated  by  the  river  Rubicon.  In  that 
same  century  the  Romans  had  begun  to  interfere 
in  the  affairs  of  Greece,  which  easily  fell  into  their 
hands,  and  thus  prepared  the  way  for  their  inher- 
itance of  Alexander's  empire. 

This,  in  the  main,  was  the  work  of  the  first 
century  before  our  era,  when  the  expansion  of 
Rome  became  practically  concluded.  This  was 
mainly  the  work  of  two  men,  Caesar  and  Pompey. 
Following  the  example  of  his  uncle,  Marius, 
Caesar  extended  the  Roman  dominions  beyond 
the  Alps  to  Gaul,  Western  (Germany,  and  Britain; 
but  from  our  present  standpoint  it  was  Pompey 
who  prepared  the  way  for  Rome  to  carry  on  the 
succession  of  empire  in  the  more  civilised  por- 
tions of  the  world,  and  thereby  merited  his  title 
of  "Great."  He  pounded  up,  as  it  were,  the  va- 
rious states  into  which  Asia  Minor  was  divided, 
and  thus  prepared  the  way  for  Roman  dominion 


42     THE   STORY  OF   GEOGRAPHICAL   DISCOVERY. 

over  Western  Asia  and  Egypt.  By  the  time  of 
Ptolemy  the  empire  was  thorougly  consolidated, 
and  his  map  and  geographical  notices  are  only 
tolerably  accurate  within  the  confines  of  the  em- 
pire. 

One  of  the  means  by  which  the  Romans  were 
enabled  to  consolidate  their  dominion  must  be 
here  shortly  referred  to.  In  order  that  their 
legions  might  easily  pass  from  one  portion  of  this 
huge  empire  to  another,  they  built  roads,  general- 
ly in  straight  lines,  and  so  solidly  constructed  that 
in  many  places  throughout  Europe  they  can  be 
traced  even  to  the  present  day,  after  the  lapse  of 
fifteen  hundred  years.  Owing  to  them,  in  a  large 
measure,  Rome  was  enabled  to  preserve  its  empire 
intact  for  nearly  five  hundred  years,  and  even  to 
this  day  one  can  trace  a  difference  in  the  civiliza- 
tion of  those  countries  over  which  Rome  once 
ruled,  except  where  the  devastating  influence  of 
Islam  has  passed  like  a  sponge  over  the  old  Ro- 
man provinces.  Civilisation,  or  the  art  of  living 
together  in  society,  is  practically  the  result  of 
Roman  law,  and  in  this  sense  all  roads  in  history 
lead  to  Rome. 

The  work  of  Claudius  Ptolemy  sums  up  to  us 
the  knowledge  that  the  Romans  had  gained  b)" 
their  inheritance,  on  the  western  side,  of  the  Car- 
thaginian empire,  and,  on  the  eastern,  of  the  re- 
mains of  Alexander's  empire,  to  which  must  be 
added  the  conquests  of  Caesar  in  North-West  Eu- 
rope. Caesar  is,  indeed,  the  connecting  link  be- 
tween the  two  shells  that  had  been  growing 
throughout  ancient  history.  He  added  Gaul, 
Germany,  and  Britain  to  geographical  knowledge, 
and,  by  his  struggle  with  Pompey,  connected  the 
Levant  with  his  northerly  conquests.     One  result 


GEOGRAPHY  IN  THE  DARK  AGES.      43 

of  his  imperial  work  must  be  here  referred  to. 
By  bringing  all  civilised  men  under  one  rule,  he 
prepared  them  for  the  worship  of  one  God.  This 
was  not  without  its  influence  on  travel  and  geo- 
graphical discovery,  for  the  great  barrier  between 
mankind  had  always  been  the  difference  of  re- 
ligion, and  Rome,  by  breaking  down  the  exclu- 
siveness  of  local  religions,  and  substituting  for 
them  a  general  worship  of  the  majesty  of  the 
Emperor,  enabled  all  the  inhabitants  of  this  vast 
empire  to  feel  a  certain  communion  with  one  an- 
other, which  ultimately,  as  we  know,  took  on  a 
religious  form. 

The  Roman  Empire  will  henceforth  form  the 
centre  from  which  to  regard  any  additions  to 
geographical  knowledge.  As  we  shall  see,  part 
of  the  knowledge  acquired  by  the  Romans  was 
lost  in  the  Dark  Ages  succeeding  the  break-up 
of  the  empire;  but  for  our  purposes  this  may  be 
neglected,  and  geographical  discovery  in  the  suc- 
ceeding chapters  may  be  roughly  taken  to  be  ad- 
ditions and  corrections  of  the  knowledge  summed 
up  by  Claudius  Ptolemy. 


CHAPTER   III. 

GEOGRAPHY  IN  THE  DARK  AGES. 

We  have  seen  how,  by  a  slow  process  of  con- 
quest and  expansion,  the  ancient  world  got  to 
know  a  large  part  of  the  Eastern  Hemisphere, 
and  how  this  knowledge  was  summed  up  in  the 
great  work  of  Claudius  Ptolemy.  We  have  now 
to  learn  how  much  of  this  knowledge  was  lost  or 


44     THE   STORY  OF  GEOGRAPHI-CAL   DISCOVERY. 

perverted — how  geography,  for  a  time,  lost  the 
character  of  a  science,  and  became  once  more  the 
subject  of  mythical  fancies  similar  to  those  which 
we.  found  in  its  earliest  stages.  Instead  of  knowl- 
edge which,  if  not  quite  exact,  was  at  any  rate 
approximately  measured,  the  mediaeval  teachers 
who  concerned  themselves  with  the  configuration 
of  the  inhabited  world  substituted  their  own  ideas 
of  what  ought  to  be.*  This  is  a  process  which  ap- 
plies not  alone  to  geography,  but  to  all  branches 
of  knowledge,  which,  after  the  fall  of  the  Roman 
Empire,  ceased  to  expand  or  progress,  became 
mixed  up  with  fanciful  notions,  and  only  recov- 
ered when  a  knowledge  of  ancient  science  and 
thought  was  restored  in  the  fifteenth  century. 
But  in  geography  we  can  more  easily  see  than 
in  other  sciences  the  exact  nature  of  the  disturb- 
ing mfluence  which  prevented  the  acquisition  of 
new  knowledge. 

Briefly  put,  that  disturbing  influence  was 
religion,  or  rather  theology  ;  not,  of  course, 
religion  in  the  proper  sense  of  the  word,  or  the- 
ology based  on  critical  principles,  but  theological 
conceptions  deduced  from  a  slavish  adherence  to 
texts  of  Scripture,  very  often  seriously  misunder- 
stood. To  quote  a  single  example  :  when  it  is 
said  in  Ezekiel  v.  5,  "  This  is  Jerusalem  :  I  have 
set  it  in  the  midst  of  the  nations  .  .  .  round 
about  her,"  this  was  not  taken  by  the  mediaeval 
monks,  who  were  the  chief  geographers  of  the 
period,  as  a  poetical  statement,  but  as  an  exact 
mathematical   law,    which  determined    the   form 


*  It  is  fair  to  add  that  Professor  Miller's  researches  have 
shown  that  some  of  the  "  unscientific  "  qualities  of  the  mediaeval 
mappcB  mundi  were  due  to  Roman  models. 


GEOGRAPHY  IN   THE   DARK   AGES.  45 

which  all  mediaeval  maps  took.  Roughly  speak- 
ing, of  course,  there  was  a  certain  amount  of 
truth  in  the  statement,  since  Jerusalem  would  be 
about  the  centre  of  the  world  as  known  to  the 
ancients — at  least,  measured  from  east  to  west; 
but,  at  the  same  time,  the  mediaeval  geographers 
adopted  the  old  Homeric  idea  of  the  ocean  sur- 
rounding the  habitable  world,  though  at  times 
there  was  a  tendency  to  keep  more  closely  to  the 
words  of  Scripture  about  the  four  corners  of  the 
earth.  Still,  as  a  rule,  the  orthodox  conception 
of  the  world  was  that  of  a  circle  enclosing  a  sort 
of  T  square,  the  east  being  placed  at  the  top, 
Jerusalem  m  the  centre  ;  the  Mediterranean  Sea 
naturally  divided  the  lower  half  of  the  circle, 
while  the  ^gean  and  Red  Seas  were  regarded  as 
spreading  out  right  and  left  perpendicularly,  thus 
dividing  the  top  part  of  the  world,  or  Asia,  from 
the  lower  part,  divided  equally  between  Europe 
on  the  left  and  Africa  on  the  right.  The  size  of 
the  Mediterranean  Sea,  it  will  be  seen,  thus  deter- 
mined the  dimensions  of  the  three  continents. 
One  of  the  chief  errors  to  which  this  led  was  to 
cut  off  the  whole  of  the  south  of  Africa,  which 
rendered  it  seemingly  a  short  voyage  round  that 
continent  on  the  way  to  India.  As  we  shall  see, 
this  error  had  important  and  favourable  results 
on  geographical  discovery. 

Another  result  of  this  conception  of  the  world 
as  a  T  within  an  O,  was  to  expand  Asia  to  an 
enormous  extent ;  and  as  this  was  a  part  of  the 
world  which  was  less  known  to  the  monkish  map- 
makers  of  the  Middle  Ages,  they  were  obliged  to 
fill  out  their  ignorance  by  their  imagination. 
Hence  they  located  in  Asia  all  the  legends  which 
they  had  derived  either  from  Biblical  or  classical 


46     THE  STORY  OF  GEOGRAPHICAL   DISCOVERY 

sources.  Thus  there  was  a  conception,  for  whicli 
very  little  basis  is  to  be  found  in  the  Bible,  of  two 
fierce  nations  named  Gog  and  Magog,  who  would 
one  day  bring  about  the  destruction  of  the  civ- 
ilised world.     These  were  located  m   what  would 


"M 

£i 

iffl^ 

»^ 

ftH 

%^w 

Bk* 

^^  / 

>  V^NfK 

>v \  \     \lL^Vj'ir 

s 

* 

e3 

ts?* 

1 

- 

^ 

P^Jl 

EK 

Geographical  monsters. 

have  been  Siberia,  and  it  was  thought  that  Alex- 
ander the  Great  had  penned  them  in  behind  the 
Iron  Mountains.  When  the  great  Tartar  invasion 
came  in  the  thirteenth  century,  it  was  natural  to 
suppose  that  these  were  no  less  than  the  Gog  and 
Magog  of  legend.  So,  too,  the  position  of  Para- 
dise was  fixed  in  the  extreme  east,  or,  in  other 
words,  at  the  top  of  mediaeval  maps.  Then, 
again,  some  of  the  classical  authorities,  as  Pliny 
and  Solinus,  had  admitted  into  their  geographical 
accounts  legends  of  strange  tribes  of  monstrous 
men,  strangely  different  from  normal  humanity. 
Among  these  may  be  mentioned  the  Sciapodes,  or 
men  whose  feet  were  so  large  that  when  it  was 


GEOGRAPHY  IN  THE  DARK  AGES.      47 

hot  they  could  rest  on  their  backs  and  lie  in  the 
shade.  There  is  a  dim  remembrance  of  these 
monstrosities  in  Shakespeare's  reference  to 

"The  Anthropophagi,  and  men  whose  heads 
Do  grow  beneath  their  shoulders." 

In  the  mythical  travels  of  Sir  John  Maunde- 
ville  there  are  illustrations  of  these  curious  be- 
ings, one  of  which  is  here  reproduced.  Other 
tracts  of  country  were  supposed  to  be  inhabited 
by  equally  monstrous  animals.  Illustrations  of 
most  of  these  were  utilised  to  fill  up  the  many 
vacant  spaces  in  the  mediaeval  maps  of  Asia. 

One  author,  indeed,  in  his  theological  zeal, 
went  much  further  in  modifying  the  conceptions 
of  the  habitable  world.  A  Christian  merchant 
named  Cosmas,  who  had  journeyed  to  India,  and 
was  accordingly  known  as  Cosmas  Indico- 
PLEUSTES,  wrote,  about  540  a.d.,  a  work  entitled 
"Christian  Topography,"  to  confound  what  he 
thought  to  be  the  erroneous  views  of  Pagan 
authorities  about  the  configuration  of  the  world. 
What  especially  roused  his  ire  was  the  conception 
of  the  spherical  form  of  the  earth,  and  of  the 
Antipodes,  or  men  who  could  stand  upside  down. 
He  drew  a  picture  of  a  round  ball,  with  four  men 
standing  upon  it,  with  their  feet  on  opposite 
sides,  and  asked  triumphantly  how  it  was  possible 
that  all  four  could  stand  upright?  In  answer  to 
those  who  asked  him  to  explain  how  he  could 
account  for  day  and  night  if  the  sun  did  not  go 
round  the  earth,  he  supposed  that  there  was  a 
huge  mountain  in  the  extreme  north,  round  which 
the  sun  moved  once  in  every  twenty-four  hours. 
Night  was  when  the  sun  was  going  round  the 
other  side  of  the  mountain.     He  also  proved,  en- 


48     THE   STORY  OF  GEOGRAPHICAL   DISCOVERY. 

,tirely  to  his  own  satisfaction,  that  the  sun,  in- 
stead of  being  greater,  was  very  much  smaller 
than  the  earth.  The  earth  was,  according  to 
him,  a  moderately  sized  plane,  the  inhabited  parts 


The  Hereford  map. 

of  which  were  separated  from  the  antediluvian 
world  by  the  ocean,  and  at  the  four  corners  of  the 
whole  were  the  pillars  which  supported  the  heav- 
ens, so  that  the  whole  universe  was  something  like 
a  big  glass  exhibition  case,  on  the  top  of  which 
was  the  firmament,  dividing  the  waters  above  and 
below  it,  according  to  the  first  chapter  of  Genesis. 


GEOGRAPHY  IN  THE  DARK  AGES.      49 

Cosmas'  views,  however  interesting  and  amus- 
ing they  are,  were  too  extreme  to  gain  much 
credence  or  attention  even  from  the  mediaeval 
monks,  and  we  find  no  reference  to  them  in  the 
various  mappce  mundi  which  sum  up  their  knowl- 
edge, or  rather  ignorance,  about  the  world.  One 
of  the  most  remarkable  of  these  maps  exists  in 
England  at  Hereford,  and  the  plan  of  it  given  on 
p.  48  will  convey  as  much  information  as  to  early 
mediaeval  geography  as  the  ordinary  reader  will 
require.  In  the  extreme  east,  i.e.  at  the  top,  is 
represented  the  Terrestrial  Paradise ;  in  the 
centre  is  Jerusalem  ;  beneath  this,  the  Mediter- 
ranean extends  to  the  lower  edge  of  the  map, 
with  its  islands  very  carefully  particularised. 
Much  attention  is  given  to  the  rivers  throughout, 
but  very  little  to  the  mountains.  The  only  real 
increase  of  actual  knowledge  represented  in  the 
map  is  that  of  the  north-east  of  Europe,  which 
had  naturally  become  better  known  by  the  inva- 
sion of  the  Norsemen.  But  how  little  real  knowl- 
edge was  possessed  of  this  portion  of  Europe  is 
proved  by  the  fact  that  the  map-maker  placed 
near  Norway  the  Cynocephali,  or  dog-headed 
men,  probably  derived  from  some  confused  ac- 
counts of  Indian  monkeys.  Near  them  are  placed 
the  Gryphons,  "  men  most  wicked,  for  among 
their  misdeeds  they  also  make  garments  for  them- 
selves and  their  horses  out  of  the  skins  of  their 
enemies."  Here,  too,  is  placed  the  home  of  the 
Seven  Sleepers,  who  lived  for  ever  as  a  standing 
miracle  to  convert  the  heathen.  The  shape  given 
to  the  British  Islands  will  be  observed  as  due  to 
the  necessity  of  keeping  the  circular  form  of  the 
inhabited  world.  Other  details  about  England 
we  may  leave  for  the  present. 
4 


50     THE  STORY  OF  GEOGRAPHICAL  DISCOVERY. 

It  is  obvious  that  maps  such  as  the  Hereford 
one  would  be  of  no  practical  utility  to  travellers 
who  desired  to  pass  from  one  country  to  another ; 
indeed,  they  were  not  intended  for  any  such  pur- 
pose. Geography  had  ceased  to  be  in  any  sense 
a  practical  science  ;  it  only  ministered  to  men's 
sense  of  wonder,  and  men  studied  it  mainly  in 
order  to  learn  about  the  marvels  of  the  world. 
When  William  of  Wykeham  drew  up  his  rules  for 
the  Fellows  and  Scholars  of  New  College,  Oxford, 
he  directed  them  in  the  long  winter  evenings  to 
occupy  themselves  with  "  singing,  or  reciting 
poetry,  or  with  the  chronicles  of  the  different 
kingdoms,  or  with  the  wofiders  of  the  world." 
Hence  almost  all  mediaeval  maps  are  filled  up 
with  pictures  of  these  wonders,  which  were  the 
more  necessary  as  so  few  people  could  read.  A 
curious  survival  of  this  custom  lasted  on  in  map- 
drawing  almost  to  the  beginning  of  the  nineteenth 
century,  when  the  spare  places  in  the  ocean  were 
adorned  with  pictures  of  sailing  ships  or  spouting 
sea  monsters. 

When  men  desired  to  travel,  they  did  not  use 
such  maps  as  these,  but  rather  itineraries,  or  road- 
books, which  did  not  profess  to  give  the  shape  of 
the  countries  through  which  a  traveller  would 
pass,  but  only  indicated  the  chief  towns  on  the 
most-frequented  roads.  This  information  was 
really  derived  from  classical  times,  for  the  Roman 
emperors  from  time  to  time  directed  such  road- 
books to  be  drawn  up,  and  there  still  remains  an 
almost  complete  itinerary  of  the  Empire,  known 
as  the  Peutinger  Table,  from  the  name  of  the 
German  merchant  who  first  drew  the  attention  of 
the  learned  world  to  it.  A  condensed  reproduc- 
tion is  given  on  the  following  page,  from  which  it 


52     THE  STORY  OF  GEOGRAPHICAL   DISCOVERY. 

will  be  seen  that  no  attempt  is  made  to  give  any- 
thing more  than  the  roads  and  towns.  Unfortu- 
nately, the  first  section  of  the  table,  which  started 
from  Britain,  has  been  mutilated,  and  we  only 
get  the  Kentish  coast.  These  itineraries  were 
specially  useful,  as  the  chief  journeys  of  men 
were  in  the  nature  of  pilgrimages;  but  these 
often  included  a  sort  of  commercial  travelling, 
pilgrims  often  combining  business  and  religion 
on  their  journeys.  The  chief  information  about 
Eastern  Europe  which  reached  the  West  was 
given  by  the  succession  of  pilgrims  who  visited 
Palestine  up  to  the  time  of  the  Crusades.  Our 
chief  knowledge  of  the  geography  of  Europe 
during  the  five  centuries  between  500  and  1000 
A.D.  is  given  in  the  reports  of  successive  pil- 
grims. 

This  period  may  be  regarded  as  the  Dark  Age 
of  geographical  knowledge,  during  which  wild 
conceptions  like  those  contained  in  the  Hereford 
map  were  substituted  for  the  more  accurate 
measurements  of  the  ancients.  Curiously  enough 
almost  down  to  the  time  of  Columbus  the  learned 
kept  to  these  conceptions,  instead  of  modifying 
them  by  the  extra  knowledge  gained  during  the 
second  period  of  the  Middle  Ages,  when  travellers 
of  all  kinds  obtained  much  fuller  information  of 
Asia,  North  Europe,  and  even,  as  we  shall  see,  of 
some  parts  of  America. 

It  is  not  altogether  surprising  that  this  period 
should  have  been  so  backward  in  geographical 
knowledge,  since  the  map  of  Europe  itself,  in  its 
political  divisions,  was  entirely  readjusted  during 
this  period.  The  thousand  years  of  history  which 
elapsed  between  450  and  1450  were  practically 
taken  up  by  successive  waves  of  invasion  from 


GEOGRAPHY  IN  THE  DARK  AGES.      53 

the  centre  of  Asia,  which  almost  entirely  broke 
up  the  older  divisions  of  the  world. 

In  the  fifth  century  three  wandering  tribes 
invaded  the  Empire,  from  the  banks  of  the  Vis- 
tula, the  Dnieper,  and  the  Volga  respectively 
The  Huns  came  from  the  Volga,  in  the  extreme 
east,  and  under  Attila,  "the  Hammer  of  God," 
wrought  consternation  in  the  Empire ;  the  Visi- 
goths, from  the  Dnieper,  attacked  the  Eastern 
Empire ;  while  the  Vandals,  from  the  Vistula, 
took  a  triumphant  course  through  Gaul  and  Spain, 
and  founded  for  a  time. a  Vandal  empire  in  North 
Africa.  One  of  the  consequences  of  this  move- 
ment was  to  drive  several  of  the  German  tribes 
into  France,  Italy,  and  Spain,  and  even  over  into 
Britain  ;  for  it  is  from  this  stage  in  the  world's 
history  that  we  can  trace  the  beginning  of  Eng- 
land, properly  so  called,  just  as  the  invasion  ot 
Gaul  by  the  Franks  at  this  time  means  the  begin- 
ning of  French  history.  By  the  eighth  century 
the  kingdom  of  the  Franks  .extended  all  over 
France,  and  included  most  of  Central  Germany  ; 
while  on  Christmas  Day,  800,  Charles  the  Great 
was  crowned  at  Rome,  by  the  Pope,  Emperor  of 
the  Holy  Roman  Empire,  which  professed  to 
revive  the  glories  of  the  old  empire,  but  made  a 
division  between  the  temporal  power  held  by  the 
Emperor  and  the  spiritual  power  held  by  the 
Pope. 

One  of  the  divisions  of  the  Frankish  Empire 
deserves  attention,  because  upon  its  fate  rested 
the  destinies  of  most  of  the  nations  of  Western 
Europe.  The  kingdom  of  Burgundy,  the  buffer 
state  between  France  and  Germany,  has  now 
entirely  disappeared,  except  as  the  name  of  a 
wine  ;  but  having  no  natural  boundaries,  it  was 


54     THE  STORY  OF  GEOGRAPHICAL   DISCOVERY. 

disputed  between  France  and  Germany  for  a  long 
period,  and  it  may  be  fairly  said  that  the  Franco- 
Prusfian  War  was  the  last  stage  in  its  history  up 
to  the  present.  A  similar  state  existed  in  the 
east  of  Europe,  viz.  the  kingdom  of  Poland, 
which  was  equally  indefinite  in  shape,  and  has 
equally  formed  a  subject  of  dispute  between  the 
nations  of  Eastern  Europe.  This,  as  is  well 
known,  only  disappeared  as  an  independent  state 
in  1795,  when  it  finally  ceased  to  act  as  a  buffer 
between  Russia  and  the  rest  of  Europe.  Roughly 
speaking,  after  the  settlement  of  the  Germanic 
tribes  within  the  confines  of  the  Empire,  the 
history  of  Europe,  and  therefore  its  historical 
geography,  may  be  summed  up  as  a  struggle  for 
the  possession  of  Burgundy  and  Poland. 

But  there  was  an  important  interlude  in  the 
south-west  of  Europe,  which  must  engage  our 
attention  as  a  symptom  of  a  world-historic 
change  in  the  condition  of  civilisation.  During 
the  course  of  the  seventh  and  eighth  centuries 
(roughly,  between  622  and  750)  the  inhabitants 
of  the  Arabian  peninsula  burst  the  seclusion 
which  they  had  held  since  the  beginning,  almost, 
of  history,  and,  inspired  by  the  zeal  of  the  newly- 
founded  religion  of  Islam,  spread  their  influence 
from  India  to  Spain,  along  the  southern  littoral 
of  the  Mediterranean.  When  they  had  once 
settled  down,  they  began  to  recover  the  remnants 
of  Graeco-Roman  science  that  had  been  lost  on 
the  north  shores  of  the  Mediterranean.  The 
Christians  of  Syria  used  Greek  for  their  sacred 
language,  and  accordingly  when  the  Sultans  of 
Bagdad  desired  to  know  something  of  the  wisdom 
of  the  Greeks,  they  got  Syriac-speaking  Chris- 
tians to  translate  some  of  the  scientific  works  of 


GEOGRAPHY  IN  THE   DARK  AGES.  55 

the  Greeks,  first  into  Syriac,  and  thence  into 
Arabic.  In  this  way  they  obtained  a  knowledge 
of  the  great  works  of  Ptolemy,  both  in  astronomy 
— which  they  regarded  as  the  more  important, 
and  therefore  the  greatest,  Almagest — and  also 
in  geography,  though  one  can  easily  understand 
the  great  modifications  which  the  strange  names 
of  Ptolemy  must  have  undergone  in  being  tran- 
scribed first  into  Syriac  and  then  into  Arabic.  We 
shall  see  later  on  some  of  the  results  of  the  Arabic 
Ptolemy. 

The  conquests  of  the  Arabs  affected  the 
knowledge  of  geography  in  a  twofold  way  :  by 
bringing  about  the  Crusades,  and  by  renewing 
the  acquaintance  of  the  west  with  the  east  of 
Asia.  The  Arabs  were  acquainted  with  South- 
Eastern  Africa  as  far  south  as  Zanzibar  and  So- 
fala,  though,  following  the  views  of  Ptolemy  as  to 
the  Great  Unknown  South  Land,  they  imagined 
that  these  spread  out  mto  the  Indian  Ocean  to- 
wards India.  They  seem  even  to  have  had  some 
vague  knowledge  of  the  sources  of  the  Nile. 
They  were  also  acquainted  with  Ceylon,  Java, 
and  Sumatra,  and  they  were  the  first  people  to 
learn  the  various  uses  to  which  the  cocoa-nut  can 
be  put.  Their  merchants,  too,  visited  China  as 
early  as  the  ninth  century,  and  we  have  from 
>  their  accounts  some  of  the  earliest  descriptions 
of  the  Chinese,  who  were  described  by  them  as 
a  handsome  people,  superior  in  beauty  to  the 
Indians,  with  fine  dark  hair,  regular  features,  and 
very  like  the  Arabs.  We  shall  see  later  on  how 
comparatively  easy  it  was  for  a  Mohammedan  to 
travel  from  one  end  of  the  known  world  to  the 
other,  owing  to  the  community  of  religion  through- 
out such  a  vast  area.  » 


56     THE  STORY  OF  GEOGRAPHICAL  DISCOVERY. 

Some  words  should  perhaps  be  said  on  the 
geographical  works  of  the  Arabs.  One  of  the 
most  important  of  these,  by  Yacut,  is  in  the  form 
of  a  huge  Gazetteer,  arranged  in  alphabetical 
order;  but  the  greatest  geographical  work  of  the 
Arabs  is  by  Edrisi,  geographer  to  King  Roger  of 
Sicily,  1 154,  who  describes  the  world  somewhat 
after  the  manner  of  Ptolemy,  but  with  modifica- 
tions of  some  interest.  He  divides  the  world  into 
seven  horizontal  strips,  known  as  "climates,"  and 
ranging  from  the  equator  to  the  British  Isles. 
These  strips  are  subdivided  into  eleven  sections, 
so  that  the  world,  in  Edrisi's  conception,  is  like  a 
chess-board,  divided  into  seventy-seven  squares, 
and  his  work  consists  of  an  elaborate  description 
of  each  of  these  squares  taken  one  by  one,  each 
climate  being  worked  through  regularly,  so  that 
you  might  get  parts  of  France  in  the  eighth  and 
ninth  squares,  and  other  parts  in  the  sixteenth 
and  seventeenth.  Such  a  method  was  not  adapted 
to  give  a  clear  conception  of  separate  countries, 
but  this  was  scarcely  Edrisi's  object.  When  the 
Arabs — or,  indeed,  any  of  the  ancient  or  mediaeval 
writers — wanted  to  describe  a  land,  they  wrote 
about  the  tribe  or  nation  inhabiting  it,  and  not 
about  the  position  of  the  towns  in  it ;  in  other 
words,  they  drew  no  marked  distinction  between 
ethnology  and  geography. 

But  the  geography  of  the  Arabs  had  little 
or  no  influence  upon  that  of  Europe,  which,  so 
far  as  maps  went,  continued  to  be  based  on  fancy 
instead  of  fact  almost  up  to  the  time  of  Colum- 
bus. 

Meanwhile  another  movement  had  been  going 
on  during  the  eighth  and  ninth  centuries,  which 
helped  to  make  Europe  what  it  is,  and  extended 


GEOGRAPHY  IN  THE   DARK  AGES. 


57 


considerably  the  common  knowledge  of  the  north- 
ern European  peoples.  For  the  first  time  since  the 
disappearance  of  the  Phoenicians,  a  great  naval 
power  came  into  existence  in  Norway,  and  with- 
in a  couple  of  centuries  it  had  influenced  almost 


The  World  according;  to  Ibn  Haukal. 

the  whole  sea-coast  of  Europe.  The  Vikings,  or 
Sea-Rovers,  who  kept  their  long  ships  in  the 
viks^  or  fjords,  of  Norway,  made  vigorous  attacks 
all  along  the  coast  of  Europe,  and  in  several 
cases  formed  stable  governments,  and  so  made, 
in  a  way,  a  sort  of  crust  for  Europe,  preventing 
any  further  shaking  of  its  human  contents.  In 
Iceland,  in  England,  in  Ireland,  in  Normandy,  in 


58     THE   STORY  OF  GEOGRAPHICAL   DISCOVERY. 

Sicily,  and  at  Constantinople  (where  they  formed 
the  Varangi,  or  body-guard  of  the  Emperor),  as 
well  as  in  Russia,  and  for  a  time  in  the  Holy 
Land,  Vikings  or  Normans  founded  kingdoms 
between  which  there  was  a  lively  interchange  of 
visits  and  knowledge. 

They  certainly  extended  their  voyages  to 
Greenland,  and  there  is  a  good  deal  of  evidence 
for  believing  that  they  travelled  from  Greenland 
to  Labrador  and  Newfoundland.  In  the  year 
looi,  an  Icelander  named  Biorn,  sailing  to  Green- 
land to  visit  his  father,  was  driven  to  the  south- 
west, and  came  to  a  country  which  they  called 
Vinland,  inhabited  by  dwarfs,  and  having  a  short- 
est day  of  eight  hours,  which  would  correspond 
roughly  to  50°  north  latitude.  The  Norsemen 
settled  there,  and  as  late  as  1121  the  Bishop  of 
Greenland  visited  them,  in  order  to  convert  them 
to  Christianity.  There  is  little  reason  to  doubt 
that  this  Vinland  was  on  the  mainland  of  North 
America,  and  the  Norsemen  were  therefore  the 
first  Europeans  to  discover  America.  As  late  as 
1380,  two  Venetians,  named  Zeno,  visited  Iceland, 
and  reported  that  there  was  a  tradition  there  of  a 
land  named  Estotiland,  a  thousand  miles  west  of 
the  Faroe  Islands,  and  south  of  Greenland.  The 
people  were  reported  to  be  civilised  and  good 
seamen,  though  unacquainted  with  the  use  of  the 
compass,  while  south  of  them  were  savage  can- 
nibals, and  still  more  to  the  south-west  another 
civilised  people,  who  built  large  cities  and 
temples,  but  offered  up  human  victims  in  them. 
There  seems  to  be  here  a  dim  knowledge  of  the 
Mexicans. 

The  great  difficulty  in  maritime  discovery, 
both  for  the  ancients  and  the  men  of  the  Middle 


GEOGRAPHY  IN  THE  DARK  AGES.      59 

A^es,  was  the  necessity  of  keeping  close  to  the 
shore.  It  is  true  they  might  guide  themselves  by 
the  sun  during  the  day,  and  by  the  pole-star  at 
night,  but  if  once  the  sky  was  overcast,  they 
would  become  entirely  at  a  loss  for  their  bearings. 
Hence  the  discovery  of  the  polar  tendency  of  the 
magnetic  needle  was  a  necessary  prelude  to  any 
extended  voyages  away  from  land.  This  appears 
CO  have  been  known  to  the  Chinese  from  quite 
jncient  times,  and  utilised  on  their  junks  as  early 
as  the  eleventh  century.  The  Arabs,  who 
voyaged  to  Ceylon  and  Java,  appear  to  have 
learnt  its  use  from  the  Chinese,  and  it  is  probably 
from  them  that  the  mariners  of  Barcelona  first 
introduced  its  use  into  Europe.  The  first  mention 
of  it  is  given  in  a  treatise  on  Natural  History  by 
Alexander  Neckam,  foster-brother  of  Richard, 
Coeur  de  Lion.  Another  reference,  in  a  satirical 
poem  of  the  troubadour,  Guyot  of  Provence 
(1190),  states  that  mariners  can  steer  to  the  north 
star  without  seeing  it,  by  following  the  direction 
of  a  needle  floating  in  a  straw  in  a  basin  of  water, 
after  it  had  been  touched  by  a  magnet.  But  little 
use,  however,  seems  to  have  been  made  of  this, 
for  Brunetto  Latini,  Dante's  tutor,  when  on  a 
visit  to  Roger  Bacon  in  125S,  states  that  the  friar 
had  shown  him  the  magnet  and  its  properties,  but 
adds  that,  however  useful  the  discovery,  ''no 
master  mariner  would  dare  to  use  it,  lest  he 
should  be  thought  to  be  a  magician."  Indeed, 
in  the  form  in  which  it  was  first  used  it  would  be 
of  little  practical  utility,  and  it  was  not  till  the 
method  was  found  of  balancing  it  on  a  pivot  and 
fixing  it  on  a  card,  as  at  present  used,  that  it 
became  a  necessary  part  of  a  sailor's  outfit.  This 
practical  improvement  is  attributed  to  one  Fiavio 


6o     THE  STORY  OF  GEOGRAPHICAL  DISCOVERY. 

Gioja,  of  Amalfi,   in  the  beginning  of  the  four- 
teenth century. 

When  once  the  mariner's  compass  had  come 
into  general  use,  and  its  indications  observed  by- 
master  mariners  in  their  voyages,  a  much  more 
practical  method  was  at  hand  for  determining  the 
relative  positions  of  the  different  lands.  Hitherto 
geographers  (i.e.,  mainly  Greeks  and  Arabs)  had 
had  to  depend  for  fixing  relative  positions  on  the 
vague  statements  in  the  itineraries  of  merchants 
and  soldiers  ;  but  now,  with  the  aid  of  the  com- 
pass, it  was  not  difficult  to  determine  the  relative 
position  of  one  point  to  another,  while  all  the 
windings  of  a  road  could  be  fixed  down  on  paper 
without  much  difficulty.  Consequently,  while  the 
learned  monks  were  content  with  the  mixture  of 
myth  and  fable  which  we  have  seen  to  have 
formed  the  basis  of  their  maps  of  the  world,  the 
seamen  of  the  Mediterranean  were  gradually 
building  up  charts  of  that  sea  and  the  neighbour- 
ing lands  which  varied  but  little  from  the  true 
position.  A  chart  of  this  kind  was  called  a  Portu- 
lano,  as  givmg  information  of  the  best  routes 
from  port  to  port,  and  Baron  Nordenskiold  has 
recently  shown  how  a.\\  these  J>orfu/am  are  derived 
from  a  single  Catalan  map  which  has  been  lost, 
but  must  have  been  compiled  between  1266  and 
1291.  And  yet  there  were  some  of  the  learned 
who  were  not  above  taking  instruction  from  the 
practical  knowledge  of  the  seamen.  In  1339,  one 
Angelico  Dulcert,  of  Majorca,  made  an  elaborate 
map  of  the  world  on  the  principle  of  the  portu- 
lano,  giving  the  coast  line — at  least  of  the  Medi- 
terranean— with  remarkable  accuracy.  A  little 
later,  in  1375,  a  Jew  of  the  same  island,  named 
Cresquez,  made  an  improvement  on  this  by  intro- 


62     THE  STORY  OF  GEOGRAPHICAL   DISCOVERY. 

ducing  into  the  eastern  parts  of  the  map  the 
recently  acquired  knowledge  of  Cathay,  or.  China, 
due  to  the  great  traveller  Marco  Polo.  His  map 
(generally  known  as  the  Catalan  Map,  from  the 
language  of  the  inscriptions  plentifully  scattered 
over  it)  is  divided  into  eight  horizontal  strips, 
and  on  the  preceding  page  will  be  found  a  reduced 
reproduction,  showing  how  very  accurately  the 
coast  line  of  the  Mediterranean  was  reproduced 
in  these  portulanos. 

With  the  portulanos,  geographical  knowledge 
once  more  came  back  to  the  lines  of  progress, 
by  reverting  to  the  representation  of  fact,  and, 
by  giving  an  accurate  representation  of  the 
coast  line,  enabled  mariners  to  adventure  more 
fearlessly  and  to  return  more  safely,  while  they 
gave  the  means  of  recording  any  further  knowl- 
edge. As  we  shall  see,  they  aided  Prince  Henry 
the  Navigator  to  start  that  series  of  geographi- 
cal investigation  which  led  to  the  discoveries  that 
closed  the  Middle  Ages.  With  them  we  may  fair- 
ly close  the  history  of  medi3eval  geography,  so  far 
as  it  professed  to  be  a  systematic  branch  of 
knowledge. 

We  must  now  turn  back  and  briefly  sum  up 
the  additions  to  knowledge  made  by  travellers, 
pilgrims,  and  merchants,  and  recorded  in  literary 
shape  in  the  form  of  travels. 

[Authorities:  Lelewel,  Gdographie  du  Moyen  Age,  ^  vols, 
and  atlas,  1852  ;  C  R.  Beazley,  Dawn  of  Geography,  1897, 
and  Introduction  to  Prince  Henry  the  Navigator,  1895  ;  Nor- 
denskiold,  Feriplus,  1897.] 


MEDIEVAL   TRAVELS.  .  63 

CHAPTER  IV. 

MEDIAEVAL    TRAVELS. 

In  the  Middle  Ages — that  is,  in  the  thousand 
years  between  the  eruption  of  the  barbarians 
into  the  Roman  Empire  in  the  fifth  century 
and  the  discovery  of  the  New  World  in  the  fif- 
teenth— the  chief  stages  of  history  which  affect 
the  extension  of  men's  knowledge  of  the  world 
were:  the  voyages  of  the  Vikings  in  the  eighth 
and  ninth  centuries,  to  which  we  have  already 
referred  ;  the  Crusades,  in  the  twelfth  and 
thirteenth  centuries;  and  the  growth  of  the 
Mongol  Empire  in  the  thirteenth  and  four- 
teenth centuries.  The  extra  knowledge  ob- 
tained by  the  Vikings  did  not  penetrate  to  the 
rest  of  Europe  ;  that  brought  by  the  Crusades, 
and  their  predecessors,  the  many  pilgrimages 
to  the  Holy  Land,  only  restored  to  Western 
Europe  the  knowledge  already  stored  up  in 
classical  antiquity ;  but  the  effect  of  the  exten- 
sion of  the  Mongol  Empire  was  of  more  w^ide- 
reaching  importance,  and  resulted  in  the  addi- 
tion of  knowledge  about  Eastern  Asia  which  was 
not  possessed  by  the  Romans,  and  has  only  been 
surpassed  in  modern  times  during  the  nineteenth 
century. 

Towards  the  beginning  of  the  thirteenth  cen- 
tury, Chinchiz  Khan,  leader  of  a  small  Tatar 
tribe,  conquered  most  of  Central  and  Eastern 
Asia,  including  China.  Under  his  son,  Okkodai, 
these  Mongol  Tatars  turned  from  China  to  the 
West,  conquered  Armenia,  and  one  of  the  Mon- 
gol generals,  named  Batu,  ravaged  South  Russia 


64     THE  STORY  OF  GEOGRAPHICAL   DISCOVERY. 

and  Poland,  and  captured  Buda-Pest,  1241,  It 
seemed  as  if  the  prophesied  end  of  the  world  had 
come,  and  the  mighty  nations  Gog  and  Magog 
had  at  last  burst  forth  to  fulfil  the  prophetic 
words.  But  Okkodai  died  suddenly,  and  these 
armies  were  recalled.  Universal  terror  seized 
Europe,  and  the  Pope,  as  the  head  of  Christen- 
dom, determined  to  send  ambassadors  to  the 
Great  Khan,  to  ascertain  his  real  intentions.  He 
sent  a  friar  named  John  of  Planocarpini,  from 
Lyons,  in  1245,  to  the  camp  of  Batu  (on  the  Vol- 
ga), who  passed  him  on  to  the  court  of  the  Great 
Khan  at  Karakorum,  the  capital  of  his  empire,  of 
which  only  the  slightest  trace  is  now  left  on  the 
left  bank  of  the  Orkhon,  some  hundred  miles 
south  of  Lake  Baikal. 

Here,  for  the  first  time,  they  heard  of  a  king- 
dom on  the  east  coast  of  Asia  which  was  not 
yet  conquered  by  the  Mongols,  and  which  was 
known  by  the  name  of  Cathay.  Fuller  infor- 
mation was  obtained  by  another  friar,  named 
William  Ruysbroek,  or  Rubruquis,  a  Fleming, 
who  also  visited  Karakorum  as  an  ambassador 
from  St.  Louis,  and  got  back  to  Europe  in  1255, 
and  communicated  some  of  his  information  to 
Roger  Bacon.  He  says  :  "  These  Cathayans  are 
little  fellows,  speaking  much  through  the  nose, 
and,  as  is  general  with  all  those  Eastern  people, 
their  eyes  are  very  narrow.  .  .  .  The  common 
money  of  Cathay  consists  of  pieces  of  cotton 
paper,  about  a  palm  in  length  and  breadth,  upon 
which  certain  lines  are  printed,  resembling  the 
seal  of  Mangou  Khan.  They  do  their  writing 
with  a  pencil  such  as  painters  paint  with,  and  a 
single  character  of  theirs  comprehends  several 
letters,  so  as  to  form  a  whole  word."     He  also 


MEDIiEVAL  TRAVELS.  65 

identifies  these  Cathayans  with  the  Seres  of  the 
ancients.  Ptolemy  knew  of  these  as  possessing 
the  land  where  the  silk  comes  from,  but  he  had 
also  heard  of  the  Singe,  and  failed  to  identify  the 
two.  It  has  been  conjectured  that  the  name  of 
China  came  to  the  West  by  the  sea  voyage,  and 
is  a  Malay  modification,  while  the  names  Seres 
and  Cathayans  came  overland,  and  thus  caused 
confusion. 

Other  Franciscans  followed  these,  and  one  of 
them,  John  of  Montecorvino,  settled  at  Khan- 
balig  (imperial  city),  or  Pekin,  as  Archbishop 
(ob.  1358);  while  Friar  Odoric  of  Pordenone, 
near  Friuli,  travelled  in  India  and  China  between 
1316  and  1330,  and  brought  back  an  account  of 
his  voyage,  filled  with  the  most  marvellous  men- 
dacities, most  of  which  were  taken  over  bodily 
into  the  work  attributed  to  Sir  John  Maunde- 
ville. 

The  information  brought  back  by  these  wan- 
dering friars  fades,  however,  into  insignificance 
before  the  extensive  and  accurate  knowledge  of 
almost  the  whole  of  Eastern  Asia  brought  back 
to  Europe  by  Marco  Polo,  a  Venetian,  who 
spent  eighteen  years  of  his  life  in  the  East.  His 
travels  form  an  epoch  in  the  history  of  geographi- 
cal discovery  only  second  to  the  voyages  of 
Columbus. 

In  1260  his.  father  and  uncle,  Nicolo  and 
Maffeo  Polo,  set  out  from  Constantinople  on 
a  trading  venture  to  the  Crimea,  after  which 
they  were  led  to  visit  Bokhara,  and  thence  on 
to  the  court  of  the  Great  -Khan,  Kublai,  who 
received  them  very  graciously,  and  being  im- 
pressed with  the  desirability  of  introducing 
Western  civilisation  into  the  new  Mongolian 
5 


66     THE  STORY  OF  GEOGRAPHICAL   DISCOVERY. 

empire,  he  entrusted  them  with  a  message  to 
the  Pope,  demanding  one  hundred  wise  men  of 
the  West  to  teach  the  Mongolians  the  Christian 
religion  and  Western  arts.  The  two  brothers 
returned  to  their  native  place,  Venice,  in  1269, 
but  found  no  Pope  to  comply  with  the  Great 
Khan's  request;  for  Clement  IV.  had  died  the. 
year  before,  and  his  successor  had  not  yet  been 
appointed.  They  waited  about  for  a  couple  of 
years  till  Gregory  X.  was  elected,  but  he  only 
meagrely  responded  to  the  Great  Khan's  de- 
mands, and  instructed  two  Dominicans  to  accom- 
pany the  Polos,  who  on  this  occasion  took  with 
them  Nicolo's  son,  Marco,  a  lad  of  seventeen. 
They  started  in  November,  127 1,  but  soon  lost 
the  company  of  the  Dominicans,  who  lost  heart 
and  went  back. 

They  went  first  to  Ormuz,  at  the  mouth  of 
the  Persian  Gulf,  then  struck  northward  through 
Khorasan  Balkh  to  the  Oxus,  and  thence  on  to 
the  Plateau  of  Pomir.  Thence  they  passed  the 
Great  Desert  of  Gobi,  and  at  last  reached 
Kublai  in  May,  1275,  at  his  summer  residence 
in  Kaipingfu.  Notwithstanding  that  they  had 
not  carried  out  his  request,  the  Khan  received 
them  in  a  friendly  manner,  and  was  especially 
taken  by  Marco,  whom  he  took  into  his  own 
service;  and  quite  recently  a  record  has  been 
found  in  the  Chinese  annals,  stating  that  in  the 
year  1277  a  certain  Polo  was  nominated  a  Sec- 
ond-Class Commissioner  of  the  Privy  Council. 
His  duty  was  to  travel  on  various  missions  to 
Eastern  Tibet,  to  Cochin  China,  and  even  to 
India.  The  Polos  amassed  much  wealth  owing 
to  the  Khan's  favour,  but  found  him  very  unwill- 
ing to   let   them  return  to  Europe.     Marco  Polo 


MEDIEVAL  TRAVELS.  67 

held  several  important  posts;  for  three  years  he 
was  Governor  of  the  great  city  of  Yanchau,  and 
it  seemed  likely  that  he  would  die  in  the  service 
of  Kublai  Khan. 

But,  owing  to  a  fortunate  chance,  they  were 
at  last  enabled  to  get  back  to  Europe.  The 
Khan  of  Persia  desired  to  marry  a  princess  of  the 
Great  Khan's  family,  to  whom  he  was  related, 
and  as  the  young  lady  upon  whom  the  choice  fell 
could  not  be  expected  to  undergo  the  hardships 
of  the  overland  journey  from  China  to  Persia,  it 
was  decided  to  send  her  by  sea  round  the  coast 
of  Asia.  The  Tatars  were  not  good  navigators, 
and  the  Polos  at  last  obtained  permission  to 
escort  the  young  princess  on  the  rather  perilous 
voyage.  They  started  in  1292,  from  Zayton,  a 
port  in  Fokien,  and  after  a  voyage  of  over  two 
years  round  the  south  coast  of  Asia,  successfully 
carried  the  lady  to  her  destined  home,  though  she 
ultimately  had  to  marry  the  son  instead  of  the 
father,  who  had  died  in  the  interim.  They  took 
leave  of  her,  and  travelled  through  Persia  to 
their  own  place,  which  they  reached  in  1295. 
When  they  arrived  at  the  ancestral  mansion  of 
the  Polos,  in  their  coarse  dress  of  Tatar  cut,  their 
relatives  for  some  time  refused  to  believe  that 
they  were  really  the  long-lost  merchants.  But 
the  Polos  invited  them  to  a  banquet,  in  which 
they  dressed  themselves  all  in  their  best,  and  put 
on  new  suits  for  every  course,  giving  the  clothes 
they  had  taken  off  to  the  servants.  At  the  con- 
clusion of  the  banquet  they  brought  forth  the 
shabby  dresses  in  which  they  had  first  arrived, 
and  taking  sharp  knives,  began  to  rip  up  the 
seams,  from  which  they  took  vast  quantities  of 
rubies,    sapphires,    carbuncles,    diamonds,     and 


68     THE  STORY  OF  GEOGRAPHICAL  DISCOVERY. 

emeralds,  into  which  form  they  had  converted 
most  of  their  property.  This  exhibition  naturally 
changed  the  character  of  the  welcome  they  re- 
ceived from  their  relatives,  who  were  then  eager 
to  learn  how  they  had  come  by  such  riches. 

In  describing  the  wealth  of  the  Great  Khan, 
Marco  Polo,  who  was  the  chief  spokesman  of  the 
party,  was  obliged  to  use  the  numeral  "  million  " 
to  express  the  amount  of  his  wealth  and  the 
number  of  the  population  over  whom  he  ruled. 
This  was  regarded  as  part  of  the  usual  travellers' 
tales,  and  Marco  Polo  was  generally  known  by 
his  friends  as  "  Messer  Marco  Millione." 

Such  a  reception  of  his  stories  was  no  great 
encouragement  to  Marco  to  tell  the  tale  of  his 
remarkable  travels,  but  in  the  year  of  his  arrival 
at  Venice  a  war  broke  out  between  Genoa  and 
the  Queen  of  the  Adriatic,  in  which  Marco  Polo 
was  captured  and  cast  into  prison  at  Genoa. 
There  he  found  as  a  fellow-prisoner  one  Rusti- 
cano  of  Pisa,  a  man  of  some  learning  and  a  sort 
of  predecessor  of  Sir  Thomas  Malory,  since  he 
had  devoted  much  time  to  re-writing,  in  prose, 
abstracts  of  the  many  romances  relating  to  the 
Round  Table.  These  he  wrote,  not  in  Italian 
(which  can  scarcely  be  said  to  have  existed  for 
literary  purposes  in  those  days),  but  in  French, 
the  common  language  of  chivalry  throughout 
Western  Europe.  While  in  prison  with  Marco 
Polo,  he  took  down  in  French  the  narrative  of 
the  great  traveller,  and  thus  preserved  it  for  all 
time.  Marco  Polo  was  released  in  1299,  and 
returned  to  Venice,  where  he  died  some  time 
after  9th  January,  1334,  the  date  of  his  will. 

Of  the  travels  thus  detailed  in  Marco  Polo's 
book,  and  of  their  importance  and  significance  in 


MEDIAEVAL  TRAVELS.  69 

the  history  of  geographical  discovery,  it  is  impos- 
sible to  give  any  adequate  account  in  this  place. 
It  will,  perhaps,  suffice  if  we  give  the  summary  of 
his  claims  made  out  by  Colonel  Sir  Henry  Yule, 
whose  edition  of  his  travels  is  one  of  the  great 
monuments  of  English  learning: — 

"  He  was  the  first  traveller  to  trace  a  route  across  the  whole 
longitude  of  Asia,  naming  and  describing  kingdom  after  king- 
dom which  he  had  seen  with  his  own  eyes  :  the  deserts  of 
Persia,  the  flowering  plateaux  and  wild  gorges  of  Badakhshan, 
the  jade-bearing  rivers  of  Khotan,  the  Mongolian  Steppes, 
cradle  of  the  power  that  had  so  lately  threatened  to  swallow 
up  Christendom,  the  new  and  brilliant  court  that  had  been 
established  by  Cambaluc  :  the  first  traveller  to  reveal  China 
in  all  its  wealth  and  vastness,  its  mighty  rivers,  its  huge  cities, 
its  rich  manufactures,  its  swarming  population,  the  inconceiv- 
ably vast  fleets  that  quickened  its  seas  and  its  inland  waters  ; 
to  tell  us  of  the  nations  on  its  borders,  with  all  their  eccentric- 
ities of  manners  and  worship  ;  of  Tibet,  with  its  sordid  devo- 
tees ;  of  Burma,  with  its  golden  pagodas  and  their  tinkling 
crowns  ;  of  Laos,  of  Siam,  of  Cochin  China,  of  Japan,  the  East- 
ern Thule,  with  its  rosy  pearls  and  golden-roofed  palaces  ;  the 
first  to  speak  of  that  museum  of  beauty  and  wonder,  still  so 
imperfectly  ransacked,  the  Indian  Archipelago,  source  of  those 
aromatics  then  so  highly  prized,  and  whose  origin  was  so  dark ; 
of  Java,  the  pearl  of  islands  :  of  Sumatra,  with  its  many  kings, 
its  strange  costly  products,  and  its  cannibal  races ;  of  the 
naked  savages  of  Nicobar  and  Andaman  ;  of  Ceylon,  the 
island  of  gems,  with  its  sacred  mountain,  and  its  tomb  of 
Adam  ;  of  India  the  Great,  not  as  a  dreamland  of  Alexandrian 
fables,  but  as  a  country  seen  and  personally  explored,  with  its 
virtuous  Brahmans,  its  obscene  ascetics,  its  diamonds,  and  the 
strange  tales  of  their  acquisition,  its  sea-beds  of  pearl,  and  its 
powerful  sun  :  the  first  in  mediaeval  times  to  give  any  distinct 
account  of  the  secluded  Christian  empire  of  Abyssinia,  and 
the  semi-Christian  island  of  Socotra  ;  to  speak,  though  indeed 
dimly,  of  Zanzibar,  with  its  negroes  and  its  ivory,  and  of 
the  vast  and  distant  Madagascar,  bordering  on  the  dark 
ocean  of  the  South,  with  its  Rue  and  other  monstrosities, 
and,  in  a  remotely  opposite  region,  of  Siberia  and  the  Arctic 
Ocean,  of  dog-sledges,  white  bears,  and  reindeer-riding  Tuu- 
guses." 


70     THE   STORY  OF   GEOGRAPHICAL   DISCOVERY. 

Marco  Polo's  is  thus  one  of  the  greatest  names 
in  the  history  of  geography;  it  may,  indeed,  be 
doubted  whether  any  other  traveller  has  ever 
added  so  extensively  to  our  detailed  knowledge 


Fra  Mauro's  map,  1457. 

of  the  earth's  surface.  Certainly  up  to  the  time 
of  Mr.  Stanley  no  man  had  on  land  visited  so 
many  places  previously  unknown  to  civilised 
Europe.  But  the  lands  he  discovered,  though 
already  fully  populated,  were  soon  to  fall  into  dis- 
order, and  to  be  closed  to  any  civilising  influences. 
Nothing  for  a  long  time  followed  from  these  dis- 


MEDIAEVAL  TRAVELS.  7 1 

coveries,  and  indeed  almost  up  to  the  present 
day  his  accounts  were  received  with  incredulity, 
and  he  himself  was  regarded  more  as  "  Marco 
Millione  "  than  as  Marco  Polo, 

Extensive  as  were  Marco  Polo's  travels,  they 
were  yet  exceeded  in  extent,  though  not  in 
variety,  by  those  of  the  greatest  of  Arabian 
travellers,  Mohammed  Ibn  Batuta,  a  native  of 
Tangier,  who  began  his  travels  in  1334,  as  part  of 
the  ordinary  duty  of  a  good  Mohammedan  to 
visit  the  holy  city  of  Mecca.  While  at  Alexan- 
dria he  met  a  learned  sage  named  Borhan  Eddin, 
to  whom  he  expressed  his  desire  to  travel.  Bor- 
han said  to  him,  "  You  must  then  visit  my  brother 
Farid  Iddin  and  my  brother  Rokn  Eddin  in 
Scindia,  and  my  brother  Borhan  Eddin  in  China. 
When  you  see  them,  present  my  compliments  to 
them."  Owing  mainly  to  the  fact  that  the  Tatar 
princes  had  adopted  Islamism  instead  of  Chris- 
tianity, after  the  failure  of  Gregory  X.  to  send 
Christian  teachers  to  China,  Ibn  Batuta  was 
ultimately  enabled  to  greet  all  three  brothers  of 
Borhan  Eddin.  Indeed,  he  performed  a  more 
extraordinary  exploit,  for  he  was  enabled  to  con- 
vey the  greetings  of  the  Sheikh  Kawan  Eddin, 
whom  he  met  in  China,  to  a  relative  of  his  resid- 
ing in  the  Soudan.  During  the  thirty  years  of 
his  travels  he  visited  the  Holy  Land,  Armenia, 
the  Crimea,  Constantinople  (which  he  visited  in 
company  with  a  Greek  princess,  who  married  one 
of  the  Tatar  Khans),  Bokhara,  Afghanistan,  and 
Delhi.  Here  he  found  favour  with  the  emperor 
Mohammed  Inghlak,  who  appointed  him  a  judge, 
and  sent  him  on  an  embassy  to  China,  at  first 
overland,  but,  as  this  was  found  too  dangerous  a 
route,  he  went  ultimately  from  Calicut,  via  Cey- 


72     THE   STORY  OF   GEOGRAPHICAL   DISCOVERY. 

Ion,  the  Maldives,  and  Sumatra,  to  Zaitun,  then 
the  great  port  of  China.  Civil  war  having 
broken  out,  he  returned  by  the  same  route  to 
Calicut,  but  dared  not  face  the  emperor,  and  went 
on  to  Ormuz  and  Mecca,  and  returned  to  Tangier 
in  1349.  But  even  then  his  taste  for  travel  had 
not  been  exhausted.  He  soon  set  out  for  Spain, 
and  worked  his  way  through  Morocco,  across  the 
Sahara,  to  the  Soudan.  He  travelled  along  the 
Niger  (which  he  took  for  the  Nile),  and  visited 
Timbuctoo.  He  ultimately  returned  to  Fez  in 
1353,  twenty-eight  years  after  he  had  set  out  on 
his  travels.  Their  chief  interest  is  in  showing 
the  wide  extent  of  Islam  in  his  day,  and  the 
facilities  which  a  common  creed  gave  for  exten- 
sive travel.  But  the  account  of  his  journeys  was 
written  in  Arabic,  and  had  no  influence  on  Euro- 
pean knowledge,  which,  indeed,  had  little  to  learn 
from  him  after  Marco  Polo,  except  with  regard  to 
the  Soudan.  With  him  the  history  of  mediaeval 
geography  may  be  fairly  said  to  end,  for  within 
eighty  years  of  his  death  began  the  activity  of 
Prince  Henry  the  Navigator,  with  whom  the 
modern  epoch  begins. 

Meanwhile  India  had  become  somewhat  better 
known,  chiefly  by  the  travels  of  wandering  friars, 
who  visited  it  mainly  for  the  sake  of  the  shrine 
of  St.  Thomas,  who  was  supposed  to  have  been 
martyred  in  India.  Mention  should  also  be  made 
of  the  early  spread  of  the  Nestorian  Church 
throughout  Central  Asia.  As  early  as  the  seventh 
century  the  Syrian  Christians  who  followed  the 
views  of  Nestorius  began  spreading  them  east- 
ward, founding  sees  in  Persia  and  Turkestan,  and 
ultimately  spreading  as  far  as  Pekin.  There  was 
-a  certain   revival   of    their    missionary   activity 


MEDIEVAL  TRAVELS.  73 

under  the  Mongol  Khans,  but  the  restricted 
nature  of  the  language  in  which  their  reports 
were  written  prevented  them  from  having  any 
effect  upon  geographical  knowledge,  except  in 
one  particular,  which  is  of  some  interest.  The 
fate  of  the  Lost  Terf  Tribes  of  Israel  has  always 
excited  interest,  and  a  legend  arose  that  they  had 
been  converted  to  Christianity,  and  existed  some- 
where in  the  East  under  a  king  who  was  also  a 
priest,  and  known  as  Prester  John.  Now,  in  the 
reports  brought  by  some  of  the  Nestorian  priests 
westward,  it  was  stated  that  one  of  the  Mongol 
princes  named  Ung  Khan  had  adopted  Christian- 
ity, and  as  this  in  Syriac  sounded  something  like 
"  John  the  Cohen,"  or  "  Priest,"  he  was  identified 
with  the  Prester  John  of  legend,  and  for  a  long 
time  one  of  the  objects  of  travel  in  the  East  was 
to  discover  this  Christian  kingdom.  It  was,  how- 
ever, later  ascertained  that  there  did  exist  such 
a  Christian  kingdom  in  Abyssinia,  and  as,  owing 
to  the  erroneous  views  of  Ptolemy,  followed  by 
the  Arabs,  Abyssinia  was  considered  to  spread 
towards  Farther  India,  the  land  of  Prester  John 
was  identified  in  Abyssinia.  We  shall  see  later  on 
how  this  error  helped  the  progress  of  geographical 
discovery. 

The  total  addition  of  these  mediaeval  travels 
to  geographical  knowledge  consisted  mainly  in 
the  addition  of  a  wider  extent  of  land  in  China, 
and  the  archipelago  of  Japan,  or  Cipangu,  to  the 
map  of  the  world.  The  accompanying  map  dis- 
plays the  various  travels  and  voyages  of  impor- 
tance, and  will  enable  the  reader  to  understand 
how  students  of  geography,  who  added  on  to 
Ptolemy's  estimate  of  the  extent  of  the  world 
east   and  west  the  new  knowledge  acquired  by 


74    THE   STORY   OF   GEOGRAPHICAL   DISCOVERY. 

Marco  Polo,  would  still  further  decrease  the  dis- 
tance westward  between  Europe  and  Cipangu, 
and  thus  prepare  men  for  the  voyage  of  Co- 
lumbus. 

[Authorities  :  Sir  Henry  Yule,  Cathay  and  the  Way  Thither ^ 
1865  ;  The  Book  of  Ser  Marco  Polo,  1875.] 


CHAPTER  V. 

ROADS    AND    COMMERCE. 

We  have  now  conducted  the  course  of  our 
inquiries  through  ancient  times  and  the  Middle 
Ages  up  to  the  very  eve  of  the  great  discoveries 
of  the  fifteenth  and  sixteenth  centuries,  and  we 
have  roughly  indicated  what  men  had  learned 
about  the  earth  during  that  long  period,  and  how 
they  learned  it.  But  it  still  remains  to  consider 
by  what  means  they  arrived  at  their  knowledge, 
and  why  they  sought  for  it.  To  some  extent  we 
may  have  answered  the  latter  question  when  deal- 
ing with  the  progress  of  conquest,  but  men  did 
not  conquer  merely  for  the  sake  of  conquest. 
We  have  still  to  consider  the  material  advantages 
attaching  to  warfare.  Again,  when  men  go  on 
their  wars  of  discovery,  they  have  to  progress, 
for  the  most  part,  along  paths  already  beaten  for 
them  by  the  natives  of  the  country  they  intend 
to  conquer  ;  and  often  when  they  have  succeeded 
in  warfare,  they  have  to  consolidate  their  rule  by 
creating  new  and  more  appropriate  means  of  com- 
munication. To  put  it  shortly,  we  have  still  to 
discuss  the  roads  of  the  ancient  and  mediaeval 


ROADS   AND   COMMERCE.  75 

worlds,  and  the  commerce  for  which  those  roads 
were  mainly  used. 

A  road  may  be,  for  our  purposes,  most  readily 
defined  as  the  most  convenient  means  of  commu- 
nication between  two  towns;  and  this  logically 
implies  that  the  towns  existed  before  the  roads 
were  made;  and  in  a  fuller  investigation  of  any 
particular  roads,  it  will  be  necessary  to  start  by 
investigating  why  men  collect  their  dwellings  at 
certain  definite  spots.  In  the  beginning,  as- 
semblies of  men  were  made  chiefly  or  altogether 
for  defensive  purposes,  and  the  earliest  towns 
were  those  which,  from  their  natural  position, 
like  Athens  or  Jerusalem,  could  be  most  easily 
defended.  Then,  again,  religious  motives  often 
had  their  influence  in  early  times,  and  towns 
would  grow  round  temples  or  cloisters.  But  soon 
considerations  of  easy  accessibility  rule  in  the 
choice  of  settlements,  and  for  that  purpose  towns 
on  rivers,  especially  at  fords  of  rivers,  as  West- 
minster, or  in  well-protected  harbours  like 
Naples,  or  in  the  centre  of  a  district,  as  Nurem- 
berg or  Vienna,  would  form  the  most  convenient 
places  of  meeting  for  exchange  of  goods.  Both 
on  a  river,  or  on  the  sea-shore,  the  best  means  of 
communication  would  be  by  ships  or  boats;  but 
once  such  towns  had  been  established,  it  would  be 
necessary  to  connect  them  with  one  another  by 
land  routes,  and  these  would  be  determined 
chiefly  by  the  lay  of  the  land.  Where  mountains 
interfered,  a  large  detour  would  have  to  be  made 
— as,  for  example,  round  the  Pyrenees  ;  if  rivers 
intervened,  fords  would  have  to  be  sought  for, 
and  a  new  town  probably  built  at  the  most  con- 
venient place  of  passage.  When  once  a  recog- 
nised way   had  been    found  between    any   two 


76     THE  STORY  OF  GEOGRAPHICAL  DISCOVERY. 

places,  the  conservative  instincts  of  man  would 
keep  it  in  existence,  even  though  a  better  route 
were  afterwards  found. 

The  influence  of  water  communication  is  of 
paramount  importance  in  determining  the  situa- 
tion of  towns  in  early  times.  Towns  in  the  cor- 
ners of  bays,  like  Archangel,  Riga,  Venice,  Genoa, 
Naples,  Tunis,  Bassorah,  Calcutta,  would  natu- 
rally be  the  centre-points  of  the  trade  of  the  bay. 
On  rivers  a  suitable  spot  would  be  where  the 
tides  ended,  like  London,  or  at  conspicuous  bends 
of  a  stream,  or  at  junctures  with  affluents,  as 
Coblentz  or  Khartoum.  One  nearly  always  finds 
important  towns  at  the  two  ends  of  a  peninsula, 
like  Hamburg  and  Lubeck,  Venice  and  Genoa; 
though  for  naval  purposes  it  is  desirable  to  have 
a  station  at  the  head  of  the  peninsula,  to  com- 
mand both  arms  of  the  sea,  as  at  Cherbourg,  Se- 
vastopol, or  Gibraltar.  Roads  would  then  easily 
be  formed  across  the  base  of  the  peninsula,  and 
to  its  extreme  point. 

At  first  the  inhabitants  of  any  single  town 
would  regard  those  of  all  others  as  their  enemies, 
but  after  a  time  they  would  find  it  convenient  to 
exchange  some  of  their  superfluities  for  those  of 
their  neighbours,  and  in  this  way  trade  wouldbegin. 
Markets  would  become  neutral  ground,  in  which 
mutual  animosities  would  be,  for  a  time,  laid 
aside  for  the  common  advantage  ;  and  it  would 
often  happen  that  localities  on  the  border  line  of 
two  states  would  be  chosen  as  places  for  the  ex- 
change of  goods,  ultimately  giving  rise  to  the 
existence  of  a  fresh  town.  As  commercial  inter- 
course increased,  the  very  inaccessibility  of  fort- 
ress towns  on  the  heights  would  cause  them  to  be 
neglected  for  settlements  in  the  valleys  or  by  the 


ROADS  AND  COMMERCE.  77 

river  sides,  and,  as  a  rule,  roads  pick  out  valleys 
or  level  ground  for  their  natural  course.  For 
military  purposes,  however,  it  would  sometimes 
be  necessary  to  depart  from  the  valley  routes,  and, 
as  we  shall  see,  the  Roman  roads  paid  no  regard 
to  these  requirements. 

The  earliest  communication  between  nations, 
as  we  have  seen,  was  that  of  the  Phoenicians  by 
sea.  They  founded  factories,  or  neutral  grounds 
for  trade,  at  appropriate  spots  all  along  the 
Mediterranean  coasts,  and  the  Greeks  soon  fol- 
lowed their  example  in  the  ^gean  and  Black 
Seas.  But  at  an  early  date,  as  we  know  from  the 
Bible,  caravan  routes  were  established  between 
Egypt,  Syria,  and  Mesopotamia,  and  later  on 
these  were  extended  into  Farther  Asia.  But  in 
Europe  the  great  road-builders  were  the  Romans. 
Rome  owed  its  importance  in  the  ancient  world 
to  its  central  position,  at  first  in  Italy,  and  then 
in  the  whole  of  the  Mediterranean.  It  combined 
almost  all  the  advantages  necessary  for  a  town  : 
it  was  in  the  bend  of  a  river,  yet  accessible  from 
the  sea;  its  natural  hills  made  it  easily  defens- 
ible, as  Hannibal  found  to  his  cost ;  while  its 
central  position  in  the  Latian  Plain  made  it  the 
natural  resort  of  all  the  Latin  traders.  The 
Romans  soon  found  it  necessary  to  utilise  their 
central  position  by  rendering  themselves  acces- 
sible to  the  rest  of  Italy,  and  they  commenced 
building  those  marvellous  roads,  which  in  most 
cases  have  remained,  owing  to  their  solid  con- 
struction. "  Building  "  is  the  proper  word  to  use, 
for  a  Roman  road  is  really  a  broad  wall  built  in 
a  deep  ditch  so  as  to  come  up  above  the  level  of 
the  surface.  Scarcely  any  amount  of  traffic  could 
wear  this  solid  substructure  away,  and  to  this  day 


78    THE  STORY  OF   GEOGRAPHICAL   DISCOVERY. 

throughout  Europe  traces  can  be  found  of  the 
Roman  roads  built  nearly  two  thousand  years 
ago.  As  the  Roman  Empire  extended,  these 
roads  formed  one  of  the  chief  means  by  which 
the  lords  of  the  world  were  enabled  to  preserve 
their  conquests.  By  placing  a  legion  in  a  central 
spot,  where  many  of  these  roads  converged,  they 
were  enabled  to  strike  quickly  in  any  direction 
and  overawe  the  country.  Stations  were  natu- 
rally built  along  these  roads,  and  to  the  present 
day  many  of  the  chief  highways  of  Europe  follow 
the  course  of  the  old  Roman  roads.  Our  modern 
civilisation  is  in  a  large  measure  the  outcome  of 
this  network  of  roads,  and  we  can  distinctly  trace 
a  difference  in  the  culture  of  a  nation  where  such 
roads  never  existed — as  in  Russia  and  Hungary, 
as  contrasted  with  the  west  of  Europe,  where 
they  formed  the  best  means  of  communication. 
It  was  only  in  the  neighbourhood  of  these  high- 
ways that  the  fullest  information  was  obtained  of 
the  position  of  towns,  and  the  divisions  of 
peoples;  and  a  sketch  map,  like  the  one  already 
given,  of  the  chief  Roman  roads  of  antiquity, 
gives  also,  as  it  were,  a  skeleton  of  the  geograph- 
ical knowledge  summed  up  in  the  great  work  of 
Ptolemy. 

But  of  more  importance  for  the  future  devel- 
opment of  geographical  knowledge  were  the  great 
caravan  routes  of  Asia,  to  which  we  must  now 
turn  our  attention.  Asia  is  the  continent  of 
plateaux  which  culminate  in  the  Steppes  of  the 
Pamirs,  appropriately  called  by  their  inhabitants 
"the  Roof  of  the  World."  To  the  east  of  these, 
four  great  mountain  ranges  run,  roughly,  along 
the  parallels  of  latitude — the  Himalayas  to  the 
south,  the  Kuen-lun,  Thian  Shan,  and  Altai  to  the 


ROADS  AND  COMMERCE.  79 

north.  Between  the  Himalayas  and  the  Kuen-lun 
is  the  great  Plateau  of  Tibet,  which  runs  into  a 
sort  of  cul-de-sac  at  its  western  end  in  Kashmir. 
Between  the  Kuen-lun  and  the  Thian  Shan  we 
have  the  Gobi  Steppe  of  Mongolia,  running  west 
of  Kashgar  and  Yarkand ;  while  between  the 
Thian  Shan  and  the  Altai  we  have  the  great  Kir- 
ghiz Steppe.  It  is  clear  that  only  two  routes  are 
possible  between  Eastern  and  Western  Asia : 
that  between  the  Kuen-lun  and  the  Thian-Shan 
via  Kashgar  and  Bokhara,  and  that  south  of 
the  Altai,  skirting  the  north  of  the  great  lakes 
Balkash,  Aral,  and  Caspian,  to  the  south  of 
Russia.  The  former  would  lead  to  Bassorah  or 
Ormuz,  and  thence  by  sea,  or  overland,  round 
Arabia  to  Alexandria;  the  latter  and  longer 
route  would  reach  Europe  via  Constantinople. 
Communication  between  Southern  Asia  and 
Europe  would  mainly  be  by  sea,  along  the  coast 
of  the  Indies,  taking  advantage  of  the  monsoons 
from  Ceylon  to  Aden,  and  then  by  the  Red  Sea. 
Alexandria,  Bassorah,  and  Ormuz  would  thus 
naturally  be  the  chief  centres  of  Eastern  trade, 
while  communication  with  the  Mongols  or  with 
China  would  go  along  the  two  routes  above  men- 
tioned, which  appear  to  have  existed  during  all 
historic  time.  It  was  by  these  latter  routes  that 
the  Polos  and  the  other  mediaeval  travellers  to 
Cathay  reached  that  far-distant  country.  But,  as 
we  know  from  Marco  Polo's  travels,  China  could 
also  be  reached  by  the  sea  voyage  ;  and  for  all 
practical  purposes,  in  the  late  Middle  Ages,  when 
the  Mongol  empire  broke  up,  and  traffic  through 
mid  Asia  was  not  secure,  communication  with  the 
East  was  via  Alexandria. 

Now  it  is  important  for  our  present  inquiry  to 


8o    THE  STORY  OF   GEOGRAPHICAL   DISCOVERY. 

realise  how  largely  Europe  after  the  Crusades 
was  dependent  on  the  East  for  most  of  the  lux- 
uries of  life.  Nothing  produced  by  the  looms  of 
Europe  could  equal  the  silk  of  China,  the  calico  of 
India,  the  muslin  of  Mussul.  The  chief  gems 
which  decorated  the  crowns  of  kings  and  nobles, 
the  emerald,  the  topaz,  the  ruby,  the  diamond,  all 
came  from  the  East — mainly  from  India.  The 
whole  of  mediaeval  medical  science  was  derived 
from  the  Arabs,  who  sought  most  of  their  drugs 
from  Arabia  or  India.  Even  for  the  incense  which 
burned  upon  the  innumerable  altars  of  Roman 
Catholic  Europe,  merchants  had  to  seek  the 
materials  in  the  Levant.  For  many  of  the  more 
refined  handicrafts,  artists  had  to  seek  their  best 
material  from  Eastern  traders :  such  as  shellac 
for  varnish,  or  mastic  for  artists'  colours  (gam- 
boge from  Cambodia,  ultramarine  from  lapis 
lazuli) ;  while  it  was  often  necessary,  under  medi- 
aeval circumstances,  to  have  resort  to  the  musk  or 
opopanax  of  the  East  to  counteract  the  odours 
resulting  from  the  bad  sanitary  habits  of  the 
West.  But  above  all,  for  the  condiments  which 
were  almost  necessary  for  health,  and  certainly 
desirable  for  seasoning  the  salted  food  of  winter 
and  the  salted  fish  of  Lent,  Europeans  were 
dependent  upon  the  spices  of  the  Asiatic  islands. 
In  Hakluyt's  great  work  on  "  English  Voyages 
and  Navigations,"  he  gives  in  his  second  volume 
a  list,  written  out  by  an  Aleppo  merchant,  William 
Barrett,  in  1584,  of  the  places  whence  the  chief 
staples  of  the  eastern  trade  came,  and  it  will  be 
interesting  to  give  a  selection  from  his  long 
account. 


ROADS  AND   COMMERCE.  8 1 

Cloves  from  Maluco,  Tarenate,  Amboyna,  by  way  of 
Java. 

Nutmegs  from  Banda. 

Maces  from  Banda,  Java,  and  Malacca. 

Pepper  Common  from  Malabar. 

Sinnamon  from  Seilan  (Ceylon). 

Spicknard  from  Zindi  (Scinde)  and  Labor. 

Ginger  Sorattin  from  Sorat  (Sural)  within  Cambaia  (Bay 
of  Bengal). 

Corall  of  Levant  from  Malabar. 

Sal  Ammoniacke  from  Zindi  and  Cambaia. 

Camphora  from  Brimeo  (Borneo)  near  to  China. 

Myrrha  from  Arabia  Felix. 

Borazo  (Borax)  from  Cambaia  and  Labor. 

Ruvia  to  die  withall,  from  Chalangi. 

Allumme  di  Rocca  (Rock  Alum)  from  China  and  Con- 
stantinople. 

Oppopanax  from  Persia. 

Lignum  Aloes  from  Cochin,  China,  and  Malacca. 

Laccha  (Shell-lac)  from  Pegu  and  Balaguate. 

Agaricum  from  Alemannia. 

Bdellium  from  Arabia  Felix. 

Tamarinda  from  Balsara  (Bassorah). 

Safran  (Saffron)  from  Balsara  and  Persia. 

Thus  from  Secutra  (Socotra). 

Nux  Vomica  from  Malabar. 

Sanguis  Draconis  (Dragon's  Blood)  from  Secutra. 

Musk  from  Tartarie  by  way  of  China. 

Indico  (Indigo)  from  Zindi  and  Cambaia. 

Silkes  Fine  from  China. 

Castorium  (Castor  Oil)  from  Almania. 

Masticke  from  Sio. 

Oppium  from  Pugia  (Pegu)  and  Cambaia. 

Dates  from  Arabia  Felix  and  Alexandria. 

Sena  from  Mecca. 

Gumme  Arabicke  from  Zaffo  (JaflFa). 

Ladanum  (Laudanum)  from  Cyprus  and  Candia. 

Lapis  Lazzudis  from  Persia. 

Auripigmentum  (Gold  Paint)  from  many  places  of  Turkey. 

Rubarbe  from  Persia  and  China. 

These  are  only  a  few  selections  from  Barrett's 
list,  but  will   sufficiently  indicate   what   a   large 
& 


82    THE  STORY  OF  GEOGRAPHICAL  DISCOVERY. 

number  of  household  luxuries,  and  even  necessities, 
were  derived  from  Asia  in  the  Middle  Ages.  The 
Arabs  had  practically  the  monopoly  of  this  trade, 
and  as  Europe  had  scarcely  anything  to  offer  in 
exchange  except  its  gold  and  silver  coins,  there 
was  a  continuous  drain  of  the  precious  metals 
from  West  to  East,  rendering  the  Sultans  and 
Caliphs  continuously  richer,  and  culminating  in 
the  splendours  of  Solomon  the  Magnificent. 
Alexandria  was  practically  the  centre  of  all  this 
trade,  and  most  of  the  nations  of  Europe  found 
it  necessary  to  establish  factories  in  that  city,  to 
safeguard  the  interests  of  their  merchants,  who 
all  sought  for  eastern  luxuries  in  its  port.  Ben- 
jamin of  Tudela,  a  Jew,  who  visited  it  about  1172, 
gives  the  following  description  of  it: — 

"  The  city  is  very  mercantile,  and  affords  an  excellent 
market  to  all  nations.  People  from  all  Christian  kingdoms 
resort  to  Alexandria,  from  Valencia,  Tuscany,  Lombardy, 
Apulia,  Amalfi,  Sicilia,  Raguvia,  Catalonia,  Spain,  Rous- 
sillon,  Germany,  Saxony,  Denmark,  England,  Flandres, 
Hftinault,  Normandy,  France,  Poitou,  Anjou,  Burgundy, 
Mediana,  Provence,  Genoa,  Pisa,  Gascony,  Arragon,  and 
Navarre.  From  the  West  you  meet  Mohammedans  from 
Andalusia,  Algarve,  Africa,  and  Arabia,  as  well  as  from  the 
countries  towards  India,  Savila,  Abyssinia,  Nubia,  Yemen, 
Mesopotamia,  and  Syria,  besides  Greeks  and  Turks.  From 
India  they  import  all  sorts  of  spices,  which  are  bought  by 
Christian  merchants.  The  city  is  full  of  bustle,  and  every 
nation  has  its  own  fonteccho  (or  hostelry)  there." 

Of  all  these  nations,  the  Italians  had  the 
shortest  voyage  to  make  before  reaching  Alex- 
andria, and  the  Eastern  trade  practically  fell 
into  their  hands  before  the  end  of  the  thirteenth 
century.  At  first  Amalfi  and  Pisa  were  the  chief 
ports,  and,  as  we  have  seen,  it  was  at  Amalfi  that 
the  mariner's  compass  was  perfected ;  but  soon 


ROADS  AND  COMMERCE.  S$ 

the  two  maritime  towns  at  the  heads  of  the  two 
seas  surrounding  Italy  came  to  the  front,  owing 
to  the  advantages  of  their  natural  position. 
Genoa  and  Venice  for  a  long  time  competed  with 
one  another  for  the  monopoly  of  this  trade,  but 
the  voyage  from  Venice  was  more  direct,  and 
after  a  time  Genoa  had  to  content  itself  with  the 
trade  with  Constantinople  and  the  northern  over- 
land route  from  China.  From  Venice  the  spices, 
the  jewels,  the  perfumes,  and  stuffs  of  the  East 
were  transmitted  north  through  Augsburg  and 
Niirnberg  to  Antwerp  and  Bruges  and  the  Hanse 
Towns,  receiving  from  them  the  gold  they  had 
gained  by  their  fisheries  and  textile  goods.  Eng- 
land sent  her  wool  to  Italy,  in  order  to  tickle  her 
palate  and  her  nose  with  the  condiments  and  per- 
fumes of  the  East. 

The  wealth  and  importance  of  Venice  were 
due  almost  entirely  to  this  monopoly  of  the  lucra- 
tive Eastern  trade.  By  the  fifteenth  century  she 
had  extended  her  dominions  all  along  the  lower 
valley  of  the  Po,  into  Dalmatia,  parts  of  the 
Morea,  and  in  Crete,  till  at  last,  in  1489,  she  ob- 
tained possession  of  Cyprus,  and  thus  had  sta- 
tions all  the  way  from  Aleppo  or  Alexandria  to 
the  north  of  the  Adriatic.  But  just  as  she 
seemed  to  have  reached  the  height  of  her  pros- 
perity— when  the  Aldi  were  the  chief  printers  in 
Europe,  and  the  Bellini  were  starting  the  great 
Venetian  school  of  painting — a  formidable  rival 
came  to  the  front,  who  had  been  slowly  preparing 
a  novel  method  of  competition  in  the  Eastern 
trade  for  nearly  the  whole  of  the  fifteenth  cen- 
tury. With  that  method  begins  the  great  epoch 
of  modern  geographical  discovery. 

[Authorities  :  Heyd,  Commerce  du  Levant,  2  vols.,  1878.] 


84    THE   STORY   OF   GEOGRAPHICAL   DISCOVERY. 


CHAPTER   VI. 

TO    THE    INDIES    EASTWARD PRINCE    HENRY 

AND    VASCO    DA    GAMA. 

Up  to  the  fifteenth  century  the  inhabitants 
of  the  Iberian  Peninsula  were  chiefly  occupied 
in  slowly  moving  back  the  tide  of  Mohammedan 
conquest,  which  had  spread  nearly  throughout 
the  country  from  711  onwards.  The  last  sigh  of 
the  Moor  in  Spain  was  to  be  uttered  in  1492 — an 
epoch-making  year,  both  in  history  and  in  geog- 
raphy. But  Portugal,  the  western  side  of  the 
peninsula,  had  got  rid  of  her  Moors  at  a  much 
earlier  date — more  than  200  years  before — 
though  she  found  it  difficult  to  preserve  her 
independence  from  the  neighbouring  kingdom 
of  Castile.  The  attempt  of  King  Juan  of  Cas- 
tile to  conquer  the  country  was  repelled  by  Joao, 
a  natural  son  of  the  preceding  king  of  Portugal, 
and  in  1385  he  became  king,  and  freed  Portugal 
from  any  danger  on  the  side  of  Castile  by  his 
victory  at  Aljubarrota.  He  married  Philippa, 
daughter  of  John  of  Gaunt ;  and  his  third  son, 
Henry,  was  destined  to  be  the  means  of  revolu- 
tionising men's  views  of  the  inhabited  globe.  He 
first  showed  his  mettle  in  the  capture  of  Ceuta, 
opposite  Gibraltar,  at  the  time  of  the  battle  of 
Agincourt,  1415,  and  by  this  means  he  first 
planted  the  Portuguese  banner  on  the  Moorish 
coast.  This  contact  with  the  Moors  may  possibly 
have  first  suggested  to  Prince  Henry  the  idea  of 
planting  similar  factory-fortresses  among  the 
Mussulmans  of  India  ;  but,  whatever  the  cause, 
he  began,  from  about  the  year  1418,  to  devote  all 


TO   THE   INDIES   EASTWARD.  85 

his  thoughts  and  attention  to  the  possibility  of 
reaching  India  otherwise  than  through  the  known 
routes,  and  for  that  purpose  established  himself 
on  the  rocky  promontory  of  Sagres,  almost  the 
most  western  spot  on  the  continent  of  Europe. 

Here  he  established  an  observatory,  and  a  sem- 
inary for  the  training  of  theoretical  and  practical 
navigators.  He  summoned  thither  astronomers 
and  cartographers  and  skilled  seamen,  while  he 
caused  stouter  and  larger  vessels  to  be  built  for 
the  express  purpose  of  exploration.  He  perfected 
the  astrolabe  (the  clumsy  predecessor  of  the  mod- 
ern sextant)  by  which  the  latitude  could  be  with 
some  accuracy  determined ;  and  he  equipped  all 
his  ships  with  the  compass,  by  which  the  steer- 
ing was  entirely  determined.  He  brought  from 
Majorca  (which,  as  we  have  seen,  was  the  centre 
of  practical  map-making  in  the  fourteenth  cen- 
tury) one  Mestre  Jacme,  "a  man  very  skilful  in 
the  art  of  navigation,  and  in  the  making  of  maps 
and  instruments."  With  his  aid,  and  doubtless 
that  of  others,  he  set  himself  to  study  the  prob- 
lem of  the  possibility  of  a  sea  voyage  to  India 
round  the  coast  of  Africa. 

We  have  seen  that  Ptolemy,  with  true  scien- 
tific caution,  had  left  undefined  the  extent  of 
Africa  to  the  south  ;  but  Eratosthenes  and  many 
of  the  Roman  geographers,  even  after  Ptolemy, 
were  not  content  with  this  agnosticism,  but 
boldly  assumed  that  the  coast  of  Africa  made  a 
semicircular  sweep  from  the  right  horn  of  iVfrica, 
just  south  of  the  Red  Sea,  with  which  they  were 
acquainted,  round  to  the  north-western  shore, 
near  what  we  now  term  Morocco.  If  this  were 
the  fact,  the  voyage  by  the  ocean  along  this 
sweep  of  shore  would  be  even  shorter  than  the 


86    THE  STORY  OF  GEOGRAPHICAL   DISCOVERY. 

voyage  through  the  Mediterranean  and  Red  Seas, 
while  of  course  there  would  be  no  need  for  dis- 
embarking at  the  Isthmus  of  Suez.  The  writers 
who  thus  curtailed  Africa  of  its  true  proportions 
assumed  another  continent  south  of  it,  which, 
however,  was  in  the  torrid  zone,  and  completely 
uninhabitable. 

Now  the  north-west  coast  of  Africa  was 
known  in  Prince  Henry's  days  as  far  as  Cape 
Bojador.  It  would  appear  that  Norman  sailors 
had  already  advanced  beyond  Cape  Non,  or  Nun, 
which  was  so  called  because  it  was  supposed  that 
nothing  existed  beyond  it.  Consequently  the 
problems  that  Prince  Henry  had  to  solve  were 
whether  the  coast  of  Africa  trended  sharply  to 
the  east  after  Cape  Bojador,  and  whether  the 
ideas  of  the  ancients  about  the  uninhabitability 
of  the  torrid  zone  were  justified  by  fact.  He  at- 
tempted to  solve  these  problems  by  sending  out, 
year  after  year,  expeditions  down  the  north-west 
coast  of  Africa,  each  of  which  penetrated  farther 
than  its  predecessor.  Almost  at  the  beginning 
he  was  rewarded  by  the  discovery,  or  rediscov- 
ery, of  Madeira,  in  1420,  by  Joao  Gonsalvez 
Zarco,  one  of  the  squires  of  his  household.  For 
some  time  he  was  content  with  occupying  this 
and  the  neighbouring  island  of  Porto  Santo,  which, 
however,  was  ruined  by  the  rabbits  let  loose 
upon  it.  On  Madeira  vines  from  Burgundy  were 
planted,  and  to  this  day  form  the  chief  industry 
of  the  island.  In  1435  Cape  Bojador  was  passed, 
and  in  1441  Cape  Branco  discovered.  Two  years 
later  Cape  Verde  was  reached  and  passed  by 
Nuno  Tristao,  and  for  the  first  time  there  were 
signs  that  the  African  coast  trended  eastward. 
By   this   time   Prince  Henry's  men  had   become 


PROGRESS    OF    PORTUGCESJE    DISCOVERY 


88    THE   STORY  OF  GEOGRAPHICAL  DISCOVERY. 

familiar  with  the  natives  along  the  shore,  and  no 
less  than  one  thousand  of  them  had  been  brought 
back  and  distributed  among  the  Portuguese  no- 
bles as  pages  and  attendants.  In  1455  a  Vene- 
tian, named  Alvez  Cadamosto,  undertook  a  voy- 
age still  farther  south  for  purposes  of  trade,  the 
Prince  supplying  the  capital,  and  covenanting  for 
half  profits  on  results.  They  reached  the  mouth 
of  the  Gambia,  but  found  the  natives  hostile. 
Here  for  the  first  time  European  navigators  lost 
sight  of  the  pole-star  and  saw  the  brilliant  con- 
stellation of  the  Southern  Cross.,  The  last  dis- 
covery made  during  Prince  Henry's  life  was  that 
of  the  Cape  Verde  Islands,  by  one  of  his  captains, 
Diogo  Gomez,  in  1460 — the  very  year  of  his 
death.  As  the  successive  discoveries  were  made, 
they  were  jotted  down  by  the  Prince's  carto- 
graphers on  portulanos,  and  just  before  his  death 
the  King  of  Portugal  sent  to  a  Venetian  monk, 
Fra  Mauro,  details  of  all  discoveries  up  to  that 
time,  to  be  recorded  on  a  mappa  7}iundi,  a  copy  of 
which  still  exists  (p.  70). 

The  impulse  thus  given  by  Prince  Henry's 
patient  investigation  of  the  African  coast  con- 
tinued long  after  his  death.  In  147 1  Fernando 
de  Poo  discovered  the  island  which  now  bears 
his  name,  while  in  the  same  year  Pedro  d'Escobar 
crossed  the  equator.  Wherever  the  Portuguese 
investigators  landed  they  left  marks  of  their 
presence,  at  first  by  erecting  crosses,  then  by 
carving  on  trees  Prince  Henry's  motto,  "  Talent 
de  bien  faire,"  and  finally  they  adopted  the 
method  of  erecting  stone  pillars,  surmounted  by 
a  cross,  and  inscribed  with  the  king's  arms  and 
name.  These  pillars  were  called  padraos.  In 
1484,  Diego   Cam,  a   knight  of  the  king's  house- 


TO  THE   INDIES  EASTWARD.  89 

hold,  set  up  one  of  these  pillars  at  the  mouth  of 
a  large  river,  which  he  therefore  called  the  Rio 
do  Padrao;  it  was  called  by  the  natives  the 
Zaire,  and  is  now  known  as  the  River  Congo. 
Diego  Cam  was,  on  this  expedition,  accompanied 
by  Martin  Behaim  of  Niirnberg,  whose  globe  is 
celebrated  in  geographical  history  as  the  last 
record  of  the  older  views  (p.  104). 

Meanwhile,  from  one  of  the  envoys  of  the 
native  kings  who  visited  the  Portuguese  Court, 
information  was  received  that  far  to  the  east  of 
the  countries  hitherto  discovered  there  was  a 
great  Christian  king.  This  brought  to  mind  the 
mediaeval  tradition  of  Prester  John,  and  accord- 
ingly the  Portuguese  determined  to  make  a 
double  attempt,  both  by  sea  and  by  land,  to 
reach  this  monarch.  By  sea  the  king  sent  two 
vessels  under  the  command  of  Bartholomew 
Diaz,  while  by  land  he  despatched,  in  the  fol- 
lowing year,  two  men  acquainted  with  Arabic, 
Pedro  di  Covilham  and  Affonso  de  Payba.  Covil- 
ham  reached  Aden,  and  there  took  ship  for  Cali- 
cut, being  the  first  Portuguese  to  sail  the  Indian 
Ocean.  He  then  returned  to  Sofala,  and  ob- 
tained news  of  the  Island  of  the  Moon,  now 
known  as  Madagascar.  With  this  information  he 
returned  to  Cairo,  where  he  found  ambassadors 
from  Joao,  two  Jews,  Abraham  of  Beja  and  Jo- 
seph of  Lamejo.  These  he  sent  back  with  the 
information  that  ships  that  sailed  down  the  coast 
of  Guinea  would  surely  reach  the  end  of  Africa, 
and  when  they  arrived  in  the  Eastern  Ocean  they 
should  ask  for  Sofala  and  the  Island  of  the  Moon. 
Meanwhile  Covilham  returned  to  the  Red  Sea, 
and  made  his  way  into  Abyssinia,  where  he  mar- 
ried and  settled  do v/n,  transmitting  from  time  to 


90    THE   STORY  OF   GEOGRAPHICAL   DISCOVERY. 

time  information  to  Portugal  which   gave  Euro- 
peans their  first  notions  of  Abyssinia. 

The  voyage  by  land  in  search  of  Prester  John 
had  thus  been  completely  successful,  while,  at 
the  same  time,  information  had  been  obtained 
giving  certain  hopes  of  the  voyage  by  sea.  This 
had,  in  its  way,  been  almost  as  successful,  for 
Diaz  had  rounded  the  cape  now  known  as  the 
Cape  of  Good  Hope,  but  to  which  he  proposed 
giving  the  title  of  Cabo  Tormentoso,  or  "Stormy 
Cape."  King  Joao,  however,  recognising  that  Diaz's 
voyage  had  put  the  seal  upon  the  expectations 
with  which  Prince  Henry  had,  seventy  years  be- 
fore, started  his  series  of  explorations,  gave  it  the 
more  auspicious  name  by  which  it  is  now  known. 
For  some  reason  which  has  not  been  ade- 
quately explained,  no  further  attempt  was  made 
for  nearly  ten  years  to  carry  out  the  final  con- 
summation of  Prince  Henry's  plan  by  sending 
out  another  expedition.  In  the  meantime,  as  we 
shall  see,  Columbus  had  left  Portugal,  after  a 
mean  attempt  had  been  made  by  the  king  to 
carry  out  his  novel  plan  of  reaching  India  with- 
out his  aid;  and,  as  a  just  result,  the  discovery 
of  a  western  voyage  to  the  Indies  (as  it  was  then 
thought)  had  been  successfully  accomplished  by 
Columbus,  in  the  service  of  the  Catholic  mon- 
archs  of  Spain,  in  1492.  This  would  naturally 
give  pause  to  any  attempt  at  reaching  India  by 
the  more  cumbersome  route  of  coasting  along 
Africa,  which  had  turned  out  to  be  a  longer 
process  than  Prince  Henry  had  thought.  Three 
years  after  Columbus's  discovery  King  Joao 
died,  and  his  son  and  successor  Emmanuel  did 
not  take  up  the  traditional  Portuguese  method  of 
reaching  India  till  the  third  year  of  his  reign. 


TO   THE    INDIES   EASTWARD.  91 

By  this  time  it  had  become  clear,  from  Colum- 
bus's second  voyage,  that  there  were  more  diffi- 
culties in  the  way  of  reaching  the  Indies  by  his 
method  than  had  been  thought ;  and  the  year 
after  his  return  from  his  second  voyage  in  1496, 
King  Emmanuel  determined  on  once  more  tak- 
ing up  the  older  method.  He  commissioned 
Vasco  da  Gama,  a  gentleman  of  his  court,  to 
attempt  the  eastward  route  to  India  with  three 
vessels,  carrying  in  all  about  sixty  men.  Already 
by  this  time  Columbus's  bold  venture  into  the  un- 
known seas  had  encouraged  similar  boldness  in 
others,  and  instead  of  coastmg  down  the  whole 
extent  of  the  western  coast  of  Africa,  Da  Gama 
steered  direct  for  Cape  Verde  Islands,  and  thence 
out  into  the  ocean,  till  he  reached  the  Bay  of  St. 
Helena,  a  little  to  the  north  of  the  Cape  of  Good 
Hope. 

For  a  time  he  was  baffled  in  his  attempt  to 
round  the  Cape  by  the  strong  south-easterly 
winds,  which  blow  there  continually  during 
the  summer  season  ;  but  at  last  he  commenced 
coasting  along  the  eastern  shores  of  Africa,  and 
at  every  suitable  spot  he  landed  some  of  his 
sailors  to  make  inquiries  about  Covilham  and 
the  court  of  Prester  John.  But  in  every  case  he 
found  the  ports  inhabited  by  fanatical  Moors, 
who,  as  soon  as  they  discovered  that  their  visi- 
tors were  Christians,  attempted  to  destroy  them, 
and  refused  to  supply  them  with  pilots  for  the 
further  voyage  to  India.  This  happened  at 
Mozambique,  at  Quiloa,  and  at  Mombasa,  and 
it  was  not  till  he  arrived  at  Melinda  that  he  was 
enabled  to  obtain  provisions  and  a  pilot,  Malemo 
Cana,  an  Indian  of  Guzerat,  who  was  quite 
familiar  with  the  voyage  to  Calicut.     Under  his 


92     THE  STORY  OF   GEOGRAPHICAL   DISCOVERY. 

guidance  Gama's  fleet  went  from  Melinda  to  Cali- 
cut in  twenty-three  days.  Here  the  Zamorin,  or 
sea-king,  displayed  the  same  antipathy  to  his 
Christian  visitors.  The  Mohammedan  traders  of 
the  place  recognised  at  once  the  dangerous  rivalry 
which  the  visit  of  the  Portuguese  implied  with 
their  monopoly  of  the  Eastern  trade,  and  repre- 
sented Gama  and  his  followers  as  merely  pirates. 
Vasco,  however,  by  his  firm  behaviour,  managed 
to  evade  the  machinations  of  his  trade  rivals,  and 
induced  the  Zamorin  to  regard  favourably  an 
alliance  with  the  Portuguese  king.  Contenting 
himself  with  this  result,  he  embarked  again,  and 
after  visiting  Melinda,  the  only  friendly  spot  he 
had  found  on  the  east  coast  of  Africa,  he  re- 
turned to  Lisbon  in  September,  1499,  having 
spent  no  less  than  two  years  on  the  voyage. 
King  Emmanuel  received  him  with  great  favour, 
and  appointed  him  Admiral  of  the  Indies. 

The  significance  of  Vasco  da  Gama's  voyage 
was  at  once  seen  by  the  persons  whose  trade 
monopoly  it  threatened — the  Venetians,  and  the 
Sultan  of  Egypt.  Priuli,  the  Venetian  chronicler, 
reports :  "  When  this  news  reached  Venice  the 
whole  city  felt  it  greatly,  and  remained  stupefied, 
and  the  wisest  held  it  as  the  worst  news  that  had 
ever  arrived " — as  indeed  they  might,  for  it 
prophesied  the  downfall  of  the  Venetian  Empire. 
The  Sultan  of  Egypt  was  equally  moved,  for  the 
greatest  source  of  his  riches  was  derived  from  the 
duty  of  five  per  cent,  which  he  levied  on  all  mer- 
chandise entering  his  dominions,  and  ten  per 
cent,  upon  all  goods  exported  from  them.  Hith- 
erto there  had  been  all  manner  of  bickerings 
between  Venice  and  Egypt,  but  this  common 
danger    brought   them    together.      The    Sultan 


TO   THE   JNDIES   EASTWARD.  93 

represented  to  Venice  the  need  of  common  ac- 
tion in  order  to  drive  away  the  new  commerce ; 
but  Egypt  was  without  a  navy,  and  had  indeed 
no  wood  suitable  for  ship-building.  The  Vene- 
tians took  the  trouble  to  transmit  wood  to  Cairo, 
which  was  then  carried  by  camels  to  Suez,  where 
a  small  fleet  was  prepared  to  attack  the  Portu- 
guese on  their  next  visit  to  the  Indian  Ocean. 

The  Portuguese  had  in  the  meantime  followed 
up  Vasco  da  Gama's  voyage  with  another  at- 
tempt, which  was,  in  its  way,  even  more  impor- 
tant. In  1500  the  king  sent  no  less  than  thirteen 
ships  under  the  command  of  Pedro  Alvarez 
Cabral,  with  Franciscans  to  convert,  and  twelve 
hundred  fighting  men  to  overawe,  the  Moslems  of 
the  Indian  Ocean.  He  determined  on  steering 
even  a  more  westerly  cou-rse  than  Vasco  da  Gama, 
and  when  he  arrived  in  17°  south  of  the  line,  he 
discovered  land  which  he  took  possession  of  in 
the  name  of  Portugal,  and  named  Santa  Cruz. 
The  actual  cross  which  he  erected  on  this  occa- 
sion is  still  preserved  in  Brazil,  for  Cabral  had 
touched  upon  the  land  now  known  by  that  name. 
It  is  true  that  one  of  Columbus's  companions, 
Pinzon,  had  already  touched  upon  the  coast  of 
Brazil  before  Cabral,  but  it  is  evident  from  his 
experience  that,  even  apart  from  Columbus,  the 
Portuguese  would  have  discovered  the  New  World 
sooner  or  later.  It  is,  however,  to  be  observed 
that  in  stating  this,  as  all  historians  do,  they  leave 
out  of  account  the  fact  that,  but  for  Columbus, 
sailors  would  still  have  continued  the  old  course 
of  coasting  along  the  shore,  by  which  they  would 
never  have  left  the  Old  World.  Cabral  lost  sev- 
eral of  his  ships  and  many  of  his  men,  and,  though 
he  brought  home  a  rich  cargo,  was  not  regarded 


94    THE  STORY  OF  GEOGRAPHICAL  DISCOVERY. 

as  successful,  and  Vasco  da  Gama  was  again  sent 
out  with  a  large  fleet  in  1502,  with  which  he  con- 
quered the  Zamorin  of  Calicut  and  obtained  rich 
treasures.  In  subsidiary  voyages  the  Portuguese 
navigators  discovered  the  islands  of  St.  Helena, 
Ascension,  the  Seychelles,  Socotra,  Tristan  da 
Cunha,  the  Maldives,  and  Madagascar. 

Meanwhile  King  Emmanuel  was  adopting  the 
Venetian  method  of  colonisation,  which  consisted 
in  sending  a  Vice-Doge  to  each  of  its  colonies  for 
a  term  of  two  years,  during  which  his  duty  was 
to  encourage  trade  and  to  collect  tribute.  In  a 
similar  way,  Emmanuel  appointed  a  Viceroy  for 
his  Eastern  trade,  and  in  1505  Almeida  had 
settled  in  Ceylon,  with  a  view  to  monopolising 
the  cinnamon  trade  of  that  place. 

But  the  greatest  of.  the  Portuguese  viceroys 
was  Affonso  de  Albuquerque,  who  captured  the 
important  post  of  Goa,  on  the  mainland  of  India, 
which  still  belongs  to  Portugal,  and  the  port  of 
Ormuz,  which,  we  have  seen,  was  one  of  the 
centres  of  the  Eastern  trade.  Even  more  impor- 
tant was  the  capture  of  the  Moluccas,  or  Spice 
Islands,  which  were  discovered  in  15 n,  after  the 
Portuguese  had  seized  Malacca.  By  1521  the 
Portuguese  had  full  possession  of  the  Spice 
Islands,  and  thus  held  the  trade  of  condiments 
entirely  in  their  own  hands.  The  result  was  seen 
soon  in  the  rise  of  prices  in  the  European  mar- 
kets. Whereas  at  the  end  of  the  fifteenth  century 
pepper,  for  instance,  was  about  17s.  a  pound, 
from  1521  and  onwards  its  average  price  grew  to 
be  25s.,  and  so  with  almost  all  the  ingredients  by 
which  food  could  be  made  more  tasty.  One  of 
the  circumstances,  however,  which  threw  the  mon- 
opoly into  the  hands  of  the  Portuguese  was  the 


96    THE   STORY  OF  GEOGRAPHICAL   DISCOVERY. 

seizure  of  Egypt  in  1521  by  the  Turks  under 
Selim  I.,  which  would  naturally  derange  the  course 
of  trade  from  its  old  route  through  Alexandria. 
From  the  Moluccas  easy  access  was  found  to 
China,  and  ultimately  to  Japan,  so  that  the  Portu- 
guese for  a  time  held  in  their  hands  the  whole  of 
the  Eastern  trade,  on  which  Europe  depended  for 
most  of  its  luxuries. 

As  we  shall  see,  the  Portuguese  only  won  by 
a  neck — if  we  may  use  a  sporting  expression — in 
the  race  for  the  possession  of  the  Spice  Islands. 
In  the  very  year  they  obtained  possession  of 
them,  Magellan,  on  his  way  round  the  world,  had 
reached  the  Philippines,  within  a  few  hundred 
miles  of  them,  and  his  ship,  the  Victoria^  actually 
sailed  through  them  that  year.  In  fact,  152 1  is  a 
critical  year  in  the  discovery  of  the  world,  for 
both  the  Spanish  and  Portuguese  (the  two  nations 
who  had  attempted  to  reach  the  Indies  eastward 
and  westward)  arrived  at  the  goal  of  their  desires, 
the  Spice  Islands,  in  ^that  same  year,  while  the 
closure  of  Egypt  to  commerce  occurred  oppor- 
tunely to  divert  the  trade  into  the  hands  of  the 
Portuguese.  Finally,  the  year  152 1  was  signal- 
ised by  the  death  of  King  Emmanuel  of  Portugal, 
under  whose  auspices  the  work  of  Prince  Henry 
the  Navigator  was  completed. 

It  must  here  be  observed  that  we  are  again 
anticipating  matters.  As  soon  as  the  discovery 
of  the  New  World  was  announced,  the  Pope  was 
appealed  to,  to  determine  the  relative  shares  of 
Spain  and  Portugal  in  the  discoveries  which 
would  clearly  follow  upon  Columbus's  voyage. 
By  his  Bull,  dated  4th  May,  1493,  Alexander  VI. 
granted  all  discoveries  to  the  west  to  Spain,  leav- 
ing it  to  be  understood  that  all  to  the  east  belonged 


TO  THE  INDIES  EASTWARD.  97 

to  Portugal.  The  line  of  demarcation  was  an 
imaginary  one  drawn  from  pole  to  pole,  and  pass- 
ing one  hundred  leagues  west  of  the  Azores  and 
Cape  Verde  Islands,  which  were  supposed,  in  the 
inaccurate  geography  of  the  time,  to  be  in  the 
same  meridian.  In  the  following  year  the  Portu- 
guese monarch  applied  for  a  revision  of  the  raya, 
as  this  would  keep  him  out  of  all  discovered  in 
the  New  World  altogether  ;  and  the  line  of  de- 
marcation was  then  shifted  270  leagues  westward, 
or  altogether  mo  miles  west  of  the  Cape  Verdes. 
By  a  curious  coincidence,  within  six  years  Cabral 
had  discovered  Brazil,  which  fell  within  the  angle 
thus  cut  off  by  the  raya  from  South  America.  Or 
was  it  entirely  a  coincidence  ?  May  not  Cabral 
have  been  directed  to  take  this  unusually  west- 
ward course  in  order  to  ascertain  if  any  land  fell 
within  the  Portuguese  claims?  When,  however, 
the  Spice  Islands  were  discovered,  it  remained  to 
be  discussed  whether  the  line  of  demarcation, 
when  continued  on  the  other  side  of  the  globe, 
brought  them  within  the  Spanish  or  Portuguese 
"  sphere  of  influence,"  as  we  should  say  nowa- 
days. By  a  curious  chance  they  happened  to  be 
very  near  the  line,  and,  with  the  inaccurate  maps  of 
the  period,  a  pretty  subject  of  quarrel  was  afforded 
between  the  Portuguese  and  Spanish  commission- 
ers who  met  at  Badajos  to  determine  the  question. 
This  was  left  undecided  by  the  Junta,  but  by  a 
family  compact,  in  1529,  Charles  V.  ceded  to  his 
brother-in-law,  the  King  of  Portugal,  any  rights  he 
might  have  to  the  Moluccas,  for  the  sum  of  350,000 
gold  ducats,  while  he  himself  retained  the  Philip- 
pines, which  remained  under  Spanish  rule  until 
1S98,  with  the  exception  of  the  capture  of  Manila 
by  the  English  in  1762,  and  its  subsequent  ransom. 
7 


98    THE  STORY  OF  GEOGRAPHICAL   DISCOVERY. 

By  this  means  the  Indian  Ocean  became,  for 
all  trade  purposes,  a  Portuguese  lake  throughout 
the  sixteenth  century,  as  will  be  seen  from  the 
preceding  map,  showing  the  trading  stations  of 
the  Portuguese  all  along  the  shores  of  the  ocean. 
But  they  only  possessed  their  monopoly  for  fifty 
years,  for  in  1580  the  Spanish  and  Portuguese 
crowns  became  united  on  the  head  of  Philip  II., 
and  by  the  time  Portugal  recovered  its  indepen- 
dence, in  1640,  serious  rivals  had  arisen  to  com- 
pete with  her  and  Spain  for  the  monopoly  of  the 
Eastern  trade. 

[Authorities  :  Major,  Prince  Henry  the  Navigator^  1869  ; 
Beazeley,  Prince  Henry  the  Navigator,  1895  ;  F.  Hummerich, 
Vasco  da  Gama,  1896.] 


CHAPTER   VII. 

TO    THE    INDIES    WESTWARD THE    SPANISH 

ROUTE COLUMBUS    AND    MAGELLAN. 

While  the  Portuguese  had,  with  slow  persis- 
tency, devoted  nearly  a  century  to  carrying  out 
Prince  Henry's  idea  of  reaching  the  Indies  by 
the  eastward  route,  a  bold  yet  simple  idea  had 
seized  upon  a  Genoese  sailor,  which  was  in- 
tended to  achieve  the  same  purpose  by  sailing 
westward.  The  ancients,  as  we  have  seen,  had 
recognised  the  rotundity  of  the  earth,  and  Era- 
tosthenes had  even  recognised  the  possibility  of 
reaching  India  by  sailing  westward.  Certain  tra- 
ditions of  the  Greeks  and  the  Irish  had  placed 
mysterious  islands  far  out  to  the  west  in  the  At- 
lantic, and  the  great  philosopher  Plato  had  imag- 


TO  THE  INDIES  WESTWARD.  99 

ined  a  country  named  Atlantis,  far  out  in  the 
Indian  Ocean,  where  men  were  provided  with  all 
the  gifts  of  nature.  These  views  of  the  ancients 
came  once  more  to  the  attention  of  the  learned, 
owing  to  the  invention  of  printing  and  the  revival 
of  learning,  when  the  Greek  masterpieces  began 
to  be  made  accessible  in  Latin,  chiefly  by  fugitive 
Greeks  from  Constantinople,  which  had  been 
taken  by  the  Turks  in  1453.  Ptolemy's  geog- 
raphy was  printed  at  Rome  in  1462,  and  with 
maps  in  1478.  But  even  without  the  maps  the 
calculation  which  he  had  made  of  the  length  of 
the  known  world  tended  to  shorten  the  distance 
between  Portugal  and  Farther  India  by  2500 
miles.  Since  his  time  the  travels  of  Marco  Polo 
had  added  to  the  knowledge  of  Europe  the  vast 
extent  of  Cathay  and  the  distant  islands  of 
Zipangu  (Japan),  which  would  again  reduce  the 
distance  by  another  1500  miles.  As  the  Greek 
geographers  had  somewhat  under-estimated  the 
whole  circuit  of  the  globe,  it  would  thus  seem 
that  Zipangu  was  not  more  than  4000  miles  to  the 
west  of  Portugal.  As  the  Azores  were  considered 
to  be  much  farther  off  from  the  coast  than  they 
really  were,  it  might  easily  seem,  to  an  enthusias- 
tic mind,  that  Farther  India  might  be  reached 
when  3000  miles  of  the  ocean  had  been  traversed. 
This  was  the  notion  that  seized  the  mind  of 
Christopher  Columbus,  born  at  Genoa  in  1446,  of 
humble  parentage,  his  father  being  a  weaver.  He 
seems  to  have  obtained  sufficient  knowledge  to 
enable  him  to  study  the  works  of  the  learned, 
and  of  the  ancients  in  Latin  translations.  But 
in  his  early  years  he  devoted  his  attention  to  ob- 
taining a  practical  acquaintance  with  seamanship. 
In  his  day,   as  we   have  seen,  Portugal  was  the 


100  THE  STORY  OF  GEOGRAPHICAL  DISCOVERY. 


TO  THE   INDIES  WESTWARD.  lOI 

centre  of  geographical  k^nbv/ledge,  una  hq  ard 
his  brother  Bartolomeo,  after  many  voyages 
north  and  south,  settled  at  last  in  Lisbon — his 
brother  as  a  map-maker,  and  himself  as  a  practi- 
cal seaman.  This  was  about  the  year  1473,  and 
shortly  afterwards  he  married  Felipa  Moniz, 
daughter  of  Bartolomeo  Perestrello,  an  Italian 
in  the  service  of  the  King  of  Portugal,  and  for 
some  time  Governor  of  Madeira. 

Now  it  chanced  just  at  this  time  that  there 
was  a  rumour  in  Portugal  that  a  certain  Italian 
philosopher,  named  Toscanelli,  had  put  forth 
views  as  to  the  possibility  of  a  westward  voyage 
to  Cathay,  or  China,  and  the  Portuguese  king 
had,  through  a  monk  named  Martinez,  applied 
to  Toscanelli  to  know  his  views,  which  were 
given  in  a  letter  dated  25th  June,  1474.  It  would 
appear  that,  quite  independently,  Columbus  had 
heard  the  rumour,  and  applied  to  Toscanelli,  for 
in  the  latter's  reply  he,  like  a  good  business  man, 
shortened  his  answer  by  giving  a  copy  of  the  let- 
ter he  had  recently  written  to  Martinez.  What 
was  more  important  and  more  useful,  Toscanelli 
sent  a  map  showing  in  hours  (or  degrees)  the 
probable  distance  between  Spain  and  Cathay 
westward.  By  adding  the  information  given  by 
Marco  Polo  to  the  incorrect  views  of  Ptolemy 
about  the  breadth  of  the  inhabited  world,  Tosca- 
nelli reduced  the  distance  from  the  Azores  to  52°, 
or  3120  miles.  Columbus  always  expressed  his 
indebtedness  to  Toscanelli's  map  for  his  guid- 
ance, and,  as  we  shall  see,  depended  upon  it  very 
closely,  both  in  steering,  and  in  estimating  the 
distance  to  be  traversed.  Unfortunately  this 
map  has  been  lost,  but  from  a  list  of  geographi- 
cal positions,  with  latitude  and  longitude,  founded 


ro2  THE  STORY  OF  GEOGRAPHICAL  DISCOVERY. 

upon  it,  modern  geographers  have  been  able  to 
restore  it  in  some  detail,  and  a  simplified  sketch 
of  it  may  be  here  inserted,  as  perhaps  the  most 
important  document  in  Columbus's  career. 

Certainly,  whether  he  had  the  idea  of  reaching 
the  Indies  by  a  westward  voyage  before  or  not, 
he  adopted  Toscanelli's  views  with  enthusiasm, 
and  devoted  his  whole  life  thenceforth  to  trying 
to  carry  them  into  operation. 

He  gathered  together  all  the  information  he 
could  get  about  the  fabled  islands  of  the  Atlan- 
tic— the  Island  of  St.  Brandan,  where  that  Irish 
saint  found  happy  mortals;  and  the  Island  of  An- 
tilla,  imagined  by  others,  with  its  seven  cities. 
He  gathered  together  all  the  gossip  he  could 
hear — of  mysterious  corpses  cast  ashore  on  the 
Canaries,  and  resembling  no  race  of  men  known 
to  Europe;  of  huge  canes,  found  on  the  shores 
of  the  same  islands,  evidently  carved  by  man's 
skill.  Curiously  enough,  these  pieces  of  evidence 
were  logically  rather  against  the  existence  of  a 
westward  route  to  the  Indies  than  not,  since  they 
indicated  an  unknown  race,  but,  to  an  enthusias- 
tic mind  like  Columbus's,  anything  helped  to  con- 
firm him  in  his  fixed  idea,  and  besides,  he  could 
always  reply  that  these  material  signs  were  from 
the  unknown  island  of  Zipangu,  which  Marco 
Polo  had  described  as  at  some  distance  from  the 
shores  of  Cathay. 

He  first  approached,  as  was  natural,  the  King 
of  Portugal,  in  whose  land  he  was  living,  and 
whose  traditional  policy  was  directed  to  mari- 
time exploration.  But  the  Portuguese  had  for 
half  a  century  been  pursuing  another  method  of 
reaching  India,  and  were  not  inclined  to  take  up 
the    novel    iciea    of  a    stranger,    which    would 


TO  THE   INDIES  WESTWARD.  103 

traverse  their  long-continued  policy  of  coasting 
down  Africa.  A  hearing,  however,  was  given  to 
him,  but  the  report  was  unfavourable,  and  Colum- 
bus had  to  turn  his  eyes  elsewhere.  There  is  a 
tradition  that  the  Portuguese  monarch  and  his 
advisers  thought  rather  more  of  Columbus's  ideas 
at  first,  and  attempted  secretly  to  put  them  into 
execution ;  but  the  pilot  to  whom  they  entrusted 
the  proposed  voyage  lost  heart  as  soon  as  he  lost 
sight  of  land,  and  returned  with  an  adverse  ver- 
dict on  the  scheme.  It  is  not  known  whether 
Columbus  heard  of  this  mean  attempt  to  forestall 
him,  but  we  find  him  in  1487  being  assisted  by  the 
Spanish  Court,  and  from  that  time  for  the  next 
five  years  he  was  occupied  in  attempting  to  in- 
duce the  Catholic  monarchs  of  Spain,  Ferdinand 
and  Isabella,  to  allow  him  to  try  his  novel  plan 
of  reaching  the  Indies.  The  final  operations  in 
expelling  the  Moors  from  Spain  just  then  en- 
grossed all  their  attention  and  all  their  capital^ 
and  Columbus  was  reduced  to  despair,  and  wa^ 
about  to  give  up  all  hopes  of  succeeding  in  Spain; 
when  one  of  the  great  financiers,  a  converted  Jew 
named  Luis  de  Santaguel,  offered  to  find  means 
for  the  voyage,  and  Columbus  was  recalled. 

On  the  19th  April,  1492,  articles  were  signed, 
by  which  Columbus  received  from  the  Spanish 
monarchs  the  titles  of  Admiral  and  Viceroy  of  all 
the  lands  he  might  discover,  as  well  as  one-tenth 
of  all  the  tribute  to  be  derived  from  them;  and 
on  Friday  the  3d  August,  of  the  same  year,  he  set 
sail  in  three  vessels,  entitled  the  Santa  Maria  (the 
flagship),  the  Pinta,  and  the  Nina.  He  started 
from  the  port  of  Palos,  first  for  the  Canary  Islands. 
These  he  left  on  the  6th  September,  and  steered 
(Ju^  west.    On  the  13th  of  that  month  Columbus 


TO  THE  INDIES  WESTWARD.  105 

observed  that  the  needle  of  the  compass  pointed 
due  north,  and  thus  drew  attention  to  the  varia- 
bility of  the  compass.  By  the  21st  September  his 
men  became  mutinous  and  tried  to  force  him  to 
return.  He  induced  them  to  continue,  and  four 
days  afterwards  the  cry  of  "Land!  land!"  was 
heard,  which  kept  up  their  spirits  for  several  days, 
till,  on  the  ist  October,  large  numbers  of  birds 
were  seen.  By  that  time  Columbus  had  reckoned 
that  he  had  gone  some  710  leagues  from  the  Ca- 
naries, and  if  Zipangu  were  in  the  position  that 
Toscanelli's  map  gave  it,  he  ought  to  have  been 
in  its  neighbourhood.  It  was  reckoned  in  those 
days  that  a  ship  on  an  average  could  make  four 
knots  an  hour,  dead  reckoning,  which  would  give 
about  100  miles  a  day,  so  that  Columbus  might 
reckon  on  passing  over  the  3100  miles  which  he 
thought  intervened  between  the  Azores  and  Japan 
in  about  thirty-three  days.  All  through  the  early 
days  of  October  his  courage  was  kept  up  by  vari- 
ous signs  of  the  nearness  of  land — birds  and 
branches — while  on  the  nth  October,  at  sunset, 
they  sounded  and  found  bottom ;  and  at  ten 
o'clock,  Columbus,  sitting  on  the  stern  of  his  ves- 
sel, saw  a  light,  the  first  sure  sign  of  land  after 
thirty-five  days,  and  in  near  enough  approxima- 
tion to  Columbus's  reckoning  to  confirm  him  in  the 
impression  that  he  was  approaching  the  mysteri- 
ous land  of  Zipangu.  Next  morning  they  landed 
on  an  island,  called  by  the  natives  Guanahain, 
and  by  Columbus  San  Salvador.  This  has  been 
identified  as  Watling  Island.  His  first  inquiry 
was  as  to  the  origin  of  the  little  plates  of  gold 
which  he  saw  in  the  ears  of  the  natives.  They 
replied  that  they  came  from  the  West — another 
confirmation  of  his  impression.     Steering   west- 


lo6  THE  STORY  OF  GEOGRAPHICAL  DISCOVERY. 

ward,  they  arrived  at  Cuba,  and  afterwards  at 
Hayti  (St.  Domingo).  Here,  liowever,  the  Santa 
Maria  sank,  and  Columbus  determined  to  return, 
to  bring  the  good  news,  after  leaving  some  of  his 
men  in  a  fort  at  Hayti.  The  return  journey  was 
made  in  the  Niiia  in  even  shorter  time  to  the 
Azores,  but  afterwards  severe  storms  arose,  and 
it  was  not  till  the  15th  March,  1493,  that  he  reached 
Palos,  after  an  absence  of  seven  and  a  half  months, 
during  which  everybody  thought  that  he  and  his 
ships  had  disappeared. 

He  was  naturally  received  with  great  enthu- 
siasm by  the  Spaniards,  and  after  a  solemn  entry 
at  Barcelona  he  presented  to  Ferdinand  and  Isa- 
bella the  store  of  gold  and  curiosities  carried  by 
some  of  the  natives  of  the  islands  he  had  visited. 
They  immediately  set  about  fitting  out  a  much 
larger  fleet  of  seven  vessels,  which  started  from 
Cadiz,  25th  September,  1493.  He  took  a  more 
southerly  course,  but  again  reached  the  islands 
now  known  as  the  West  Indies.  On  visiting  Hayti 
he  found  the  fort  destroyed,  and  no  traces  of  the 
men  he  had  left  there.  It  is  needless  for  our  pur- 
poses to  go  through  the  miserable  squabbles  which 
occurred  on  this  and  his  subsequent  voyages, 
which  resulted  in  Columbus's  return  to  Spain  in 
chains  and  disgrace.  It  is  only  necessary  for  us  to 
say  that  in  his  third  voyage,  in  1498,  he  touched 
on  Trinidad,  and  saw  the  coast  of  South  America, 
which  he  supposed  to  be  the  region  of  the  Terres- 
trial Paradise,  This  was  placed  by  the  mediaeval 
maps  at  the  extreme  east  of  the  Old  World.  Only 
on  his  fourth  voyage,  in  1502,  did  he  actually 
touch  the  mainland,  coasting  along  the  shores 
of  Central  America  in  the  neighbourhood  of  Pan- 
ama.    After  many  disappointments.  h.e  died»  2pt^ 


TO  THE  INDIES  WESTWARD.  I07 

May,  1506,  at  Valladolid,  believing,  as  far  as  we 
can  judge,  to  the  day  of  his  death,  that  what  he 
had  discovered  was  what  he  set  out  to  seek — a 
westward  route  to  the  Indies,  though  his  proud 
epitaph  indicates  the  contrary  : — 

A  Castilla  y  a  Leon  I  To  Castille  and  to  Leon 

Nuevo  mondo  dio  Colon.  |  A  New  World  gave  Colon.* 

To  this  day  his  error  is  enshrined  in  the  name  we 
give  to  the  Windward  and  Antilles  Islands — West 
Indies:  in  other  words,  the  Indies  reached  by  the 
westward  route.  If  they  had  been  the  Indies  at 
all,  they  would  have  been  the  most  easterly  of 
them. 

Even  if  Columbus  had  discovered  a  new  route 
to  Farther  India,  he  could  not,  as  we  have  seen, 
claim  the  merit  of  having  originated  the  idea, 
which,  even  in  detail,  he  had  taken  from  Tosca- 
nelli.  But  his  claim  is  even  a  greater  one.  He 
it  was  who  first  dared  to  traverse  unknown  seas 
without  coasting  along  the  land,  and  his  example 
was  the  immediate  cause  of  all  the  remarkable 
discoveries  that  followed  his  earlier  voyages.  As 
we  have  seen,  both  Vasco  da  Gama  and  Cabral 
immediately  after  departed  from  the  slow  coasting 
route,  and  were  by  that  means  enabled  to  carry 
out  to  the  full  the  ideas  of  Prince  Henry;  but 
whereas,  by  the  Portuguese  method  of  coasting, 
it  had  taken  nearly  a  century  to  reach  the  Cape 
of  Good  Hope,  within  thirty  years  of  Columbus's 
first  venture  the  whole  globe  had  been  circum- 
navigated. 

The  first  aim  of  his  successors  was  to  ascer- 


Colurobus's  Spanish  name  was  Cristpval  Coloju 


Io8  THE  STORY  OF  GEOGRAPHICAL  DISCOVERY. 

tain  more  clearly  what  it  was  that  Columbus  had 
discovered.  Immediately  after  Columbus's  third 
voyage,  in  1498,  and  after  the  news  of  Vasco 
da  Gama's  successful  passage  to  the  Indies  had 
made  it  necessary  to  discover  some  strait  leading 
from  the  "West  Indies"  to  India  itself,  a  Spanish 
gentleman,  named  Hojeda,  fitted  out  an  expedi- 
tion at  his  own  expense,  with  an  Italian  pilot  on 
board,  named  Amerigo  Vespucci,  and  tried  once 
more  to  find  a  strait  to  India  near  Trinidad. 
They  were,  of  course,  unsuccessful,  but  they 
coasted  along  and  landed  on  the  north  coast  of 
South  America,  which,  from  certain  resemblances, 
they  termed  Little  Venice  (Venezuela).  Next 
year,  as  we  have  seen,  Cabral,  in  following  Vasco 
da  Gama,  hit  upon  Brazil,  which  turned  out  to  be 
within  the  Portuguese  "  sphere  of  influence,"  as 
determined  by  the  line  of  demarcation. 

But,  three  months  previous  to  Cabral's  touch- 
ing upon  Brazil,  one  of  Columbus's  companions 
on  his  first  voyage,  Vincenta  Yanez  Pinzon,  had 
touched  on  the  coast  of  Brazil,  eight  degrees 
south  of  the  line,  and  from  there  had  worked 
northward,  seeking  for  a  passage  which  would 
lead  west  to  the  Indies.  He  discovered  the 
mouth  of  the  Amazon,  but,  losing  two  of  his 
vessels,  returned  to  Palos,  which  he  reached  in 
September,  1500. 

This  discovery  of  an  unknown  and  unsus- 
pected continent  so  far  south  of  the  line  created 
great  interest,  and  shortly  after  Cabrat's  return 
Amerigo  Vespucci  was  sent  out  in  1501  by  the 
King  of  Portugal  as  pilot  of  a  fleet  which  should 
explore  the  new  land  discovered  by  Cabral  and 
claim  it  for  the  Crown  of  Portugal.  His  instruc- 
tions were  to  ascertain  how  much  of  it  was  within 


TO  THE  INDIES  WESTWARD.  109 

the  line  of  demarcation.  Vespucci  reached  the 
Brazilian  coast  at  Cape  St.  Roque,  and  then  ex- 
plored it  very  thoroughly  right  down  to  the  river 
La  Plata,  which  was  too  far  west  to  come  within 
the  Portuguese  sphere.  Amerigo  and  his  com- 
panions struck  out  south-eastward  till  they 
reached  the  island  of  St.  Georgia,  1200  miles  east 
of  Cape  Horn,  where  the  cold  and  the  floating  ice 
drove  them  back,  and  they  returned  to  Lisbon, 
after  having  gone  farthest  south  up  to  their  time. 
This  voyage  of  Amerigo  threw  a  new  light 
upon  the  nature  of  the  discovery  made  by  Colum- 
bus. Whereas  he  had  thought  he  had  discovered 
a  route  to  India  and  had  touched  upon  Farther 
India,  Amerigo  and  his  companions  had  shown 
that  there  was  a  hitherto  unsuspected  land  inter- 
vening between  Columbus's  discoveries  and  the 
long-desired  Spice  Islands  of  Farther  India- 
Amerigo,  in  describing  his  discoveries,  ventured 
so  far  as  to  suggest  that  they  constituted  a  New 
World ;  and  a  German  professor,  named  Martin 
Waldseemiiller,  who  wrote  an  introduction  to 
Cosmography  in  1506,  which  included  an  account 
of  Amerigo's  discoveries,  suggested  that  this  New 
World  should  be  called  after  him,  America,  after 
the  analogy  of  Asia,  Africa,  and  Europe.  For  a 
long  time  the  continent  which  we  now  know  as 
South  America  was  called  simply  the  New  World, 
and  was  supposed  to  be  joined  on  to  the  east 
coast  of  Asia.  The  name  America  was  sometimes 
applied  to  it — not  altogether  inappropriately, 
since  it  was  Amerigo's  voyage  which  definitely 
settled  that  really  new  lands  had  been  discovered 
by  the  western  route;  and  when  it  was  further 
ascertained  that  this  new  land  was  joined,  not  to 
Asia,  but  to  another  continent  as  large  as  itself, 


no  THE  STORY  OF  GEOGRAPHICAL  DISCOVERY. 

the  two  new  lands  were  distinguished  as   North 
and  South  America. 

It  was,  at  any  rate,  clear  from  Amerigo's  dis- 
covery  that   the   westward   route   to    the   Spice 


Amerigo  Vespucci. 

Islands  would  have  to  be  through  or  round  this 
New  World  discovered  by  him,  and  a  Portuguese 
noble,  named  Fernao  Magelhaens,  was  destined 
to  discover  the  practicability  of  this  route.  He 
had  served  his  native  country  under  Almeida  and 
Albuquerque  in  the  East  Indies,  and  was  present 
at  the  capture  of  Malacca  in  15  ii,  and  from  that 


TO  THE  INDIES  WESTWARD.  iii 

port  was  despatched  by  Albuquerque  with  three 
ships  to  visit  the  far-famed  Spice  Islands.  They 
visited  Amboyna  and  Banda,  and  learned  enough 
of  the  abundance  and  cheapness  of  the  spices  of 
the  islands  to  recognise  their  importance;  but 
under  the  direction  of  Albuquerque,  who  only 
sent  them  out  on  an  exploring  expedition,  they 
returned  to  him,  leaving  behind  them,  however, 
one  of  Magelhaens'  greatest  friends,  Francisco 
Serrao,  who  settled  in  Ternate  and  from  time  to 
time  sent  glowing  accounts  of  the  Moluccas  to 
his  friend  Magelhaens,  He  in  the  meantime  re- 
turned to  Portugal,  and  was  employed  on  an  ex- 
pedition to  Morocco.  He  was  not,  however,  well 
treated  by  the  Portuguese  monarch,  and  deter- 
mined to  leave  his  service  for  that  of  Charles  V., 
though  he  made  it  a  condition  of  his  entering  his 
service  that  he  should  make  no  discoveries 
within  the  boundaries  of  the  King  of  Portugal, 
and  do  nothing  prejudicial  to  his  interests. 

This  was  in  the  year  15 17,  and  two  years 
elapsed  before  Magelhaens  started  on  his  cele- 
brated voyage.  He  had  represented  to  the 
Emperor  that  he  was  convinced  that  a  strait 
existed  which  would  lead  into  the  Indian  Ocean, 
past  the  New  World  of  Amerigo,  and  that  the 
Spice  Islands  were  beyond  the  line  of  demarca- 
tion and  within  the  Spanish  sphere  of  influence. 
There  is  some  evidence  that  Spanish  merchant 
vessels,  trading  secretly  to  obtain  Brazil  wood, 
had  already  caught  sight  of  the  strait  afterwards 
named  after  Magelhaens,  and  certainly  such  a 
strait  is  represented  upon  Schoner's  globes  dated 
1515  and  1520— earlier  than  Magelhaens'  dis- 
covery. The  Portuguese  were  fully  aware  of  the 
dangers   threatened    to    their    monopoly   of   the 


112  THE  STORY  OF  GEOGRAPHICAL  DISCOVERY. 

spice  trade — which  by  this  time  had  been  firmly 
established — owing  to  the  presence  of  Serrao  in 
Ternate,  and  did  all  in  their  power  to  dissuade 
Charles  from  sending  out  the  threatened  expedi- 
tion, pointing  out  that  they  would  consider  it  an 
unfriendly  act  if  such  an  expedition  were  per- 
mitted to  start.  Notwithstanding  this  the  Em- 
peror persisted  in  the  project,  and  on  Tuesday, 
2oth  September,  15 19,  a  fleet  of  five  vessels,  the 
Trinidad^  St.  Antonio.,  Co7icepcion^  Victoria ^  and  St. 
/ago,  manned  by  a  heterogeneous  collection  of 
Spaniards,  Portuguese,  Basques,  Genoese,  Sicili- 
ans, French,  Flemings,  Germans,  Greeks,  Neapol- 
itans, Corfiotes,  Negroes,  Malays,  and  a  single 
Englishman  (Master  Andrew  of  Bristol),  started 
from  Seville  upon  perhaps  the  most  important 
voyage  of  discovery  ever  made.  So  great  was 
the  antipathy  between  Spanish  and  Portuguese 
that  disaffection  broke  out  alrtiost  from  the 
start,  and  after  the  mouth  of  the  La  Plata  had 
been  carefully  explored,  to  ascertain  whether  this 
was  not  really  the  beginning  of  a  passage  through 
the  New  World,  a  mutiny  broke  out  on  the  2nd 
April,  1520,  in  Port  St.  Julian,  where  it  had  been 
determined  to  winter;  for  of  course  by  this 
time  the  sailors  had  become  aware  that  the  time 
of  the  seasons  was  reversed  in  the  Southern 
Hemisphere.  Magelhaens  showed  great  firmness 
and  skill  in  dealing  with  the  mutiny ;  its  chief 
leaders  were  either  executed  or  marooned,  and  on 
the  1 8th  October  he  resumed  his  voyage.  Mean- 
while the  habits  and  customs  of  the  natives  had 
been  observed — their  huge  height  and  uncouth 
foot-coverings,  for  which  Magelhaens  gave  them 
the  name  of  Patagonians.  Within  three  days 
they  had  arrived  at  the  entrance  of  the  passage 


TO   THE   INDIES  WESTWARD. 


113 


which  still  bears  Magelhaens'  name.  By  this 
time  one  of  the  ships,  the  St  Jage^  had  been 
lost,  and  it  was  with  only  four  of  his  vessels — the 
Trinidad^  the  Victoria,  the  Concepcion,  and  the  St. 
Antonio — that  Magelhaens  began  his  passage. 
There    are    many    twists   and    divisions    in    the 


Ferdinand  Magellan. 

Strait,  and  on  arriving  at  one  of  the  partings, 
Magelhaens  despatched  the  St.  Antonio  to  explore 
it,  while  he  proceeded  with  the  other  three  ships 
along  the  more  direct  route.  The  pilot  of  the 
St.  Antonio  had  been  one  of  the  mutineers,  and 
persuaded  the  crew  to  seize  the  opportunity  to 
turn  back  altogether;  so  that  when  Magelhaens 
arrived  at  the  appointed  place  of  junction,  no 
8 


114  THE  STORY  OF  GEOGRAPHICAL  DISCOVERY. 

news  could  be  ascertained  of  the  missing  vessel ; 
it  went  straight  back  to  Portugal.  Magelhaens 
determined  to  continue  his  search,  even,  he  said, 
if  it  came  to  eating  the  leather  thongs  of  the 
sails.  It  had  taken  him  thirty-eight  days  to  get 
through  the  Straits,  and  for  four  months  after- 
wards Magelhaens  continued  his  course  through 
the  ocean,  which,  from  its  calmness,  he  called 
Pacific;  taking  a  north-westerly  course,  and  thus, 
by  a  curious  chance,  only  hitting  upon  a  couple 
of  small  uninhabited  islands  throughout  their 
whole  voyage,  through  a  sea  which  we  now  know 
to  be  dotted  by  innumerable  inhabited  islands. 
On  the  6th  March,  1520,  they  had  sighted  the 
Ladrones,  and  obtained  much-needed  provisions. 
Scurvy  had  broken  out  in  its  severest  form,  and 
the  only  Englishman  on  the  ships  died  at  the 
Ladrones.  From  there  they  went  on  to  the 
islands  now  known  as  the  Philippines,  one  of  the 
kings  of  which  greeted  them  very  favourably. 
As  a  reward  Magelhaens  undertook  one  of  his 
local  quarrels,  and  fell  in  an  unequal  fight  at 
Mactan,  27th  April,  1521.  The  three  vessels 
continued  their  course  for  the  Moluccas,  but  the 
Concepcion  proved  so  unseaworthy  that  they  had 
to  beach  and  burn  her.  They  reached  Borneo, 
and  here  Juan  Sebastian  del  Cano  was  appointed 
captain  of  the  Victoria. 

At  last,  on  the  6th  November,  152 1,  they 
reached  the  goal  of  their  journey,  and  anchored 
at  Tidor,  one  of  the  Moluccas.  They  traded 
on  very  advantageous  terms  with  the  natives, 
and  filled  their  holds  with  the  spices  and  nut- 
megs for  which  they  had  journeyed  so  far ;  but 
when  they  attempted  to  resume  their  journey 
homeward,  it  was  found  that  the   Trinidad  was 


TO  THE   INDIES  WESTWARD.  1 15 

too  unseaworthy  to  proceed  at  once,  and  it  was 
decided  that  the  Victoria  should  start  so  as  to  get 
the  east  monsoon.  This  she  did,  and  after  the 
usual  journey  round  the  Cape  of  Good  Hope, 
arrived  off  the  Mole  of  Seville  on  Monday  the 
8th  September,  1522 — three  years  all  but  twelve 
days  from  the  date  of  their  departure  from 
Spain.  Of  the  two  hundred  and  seventy  men 
who  had  started  with  the  fleet,  only  eighteen  re- 
turned with  the  Victoria.  According  to  the  ship's 
reckoning  they  had  arrived  on  Sunday,  the  7th, 
and  for  some  time  it  was  a  puzzle  to  account  for 
the  day  thus  lost. 

Meanwhile  the  Trinidad,  which  had  been  left 
behind  at  the  Moluccas,  had  attempted  to  sail 
back  to  Panama,  and  reached  as  far  north  as  43°, 
somewhere  about  longitude  175°  W.  Here  pro- 
visions failed  them,  and  they  had  to  return  to  the 
Moluccas,  where  they  were  seized,  practically  as 
pirates,  by  a  fleet  of  Portuguese  vessels  sent  spe- 
cially to  prevent  interference  by  the  Spaniards 
with  the  Portuguese  monopoly  of  the  spice  trade. 
The  crew  of  the  Trinidad  were  seized  and  made 
prisoners,  and  ultimately  only  four  of  them 
reached  Spain  again,  after  many  adventures. 
Thirteen  others,  who  had  landed  at  the  Cape  de 
Verde  Islands  from  the  Victoria,  may  also  be  in- 
cluded among  the  survivors  of  the  fleet,  so  that  a 
total  number  of  thirty-five  out  of  two  hundred 
and  seventy  sums  up  the  number  of  the  first  cir- 
cumnavigators of  the  globe. 

The  importance  of  this  voyage  was  unique 
when  regarded  from  the  point  of  view  of  geo- 
graphical discovery.  It  decisively  clinched  the 
matter  with  regard  to  the  existence  of  an  entirely 
New  World  independent  from  Asia.     In  particu- 


Il6  THE  STORY  OF  GEOGRAPHICAL  DISCOVERY. 

lar,  the  backward  voyage  of  the  Trinidad  (which 
has  rarely  been  noticed)  had  shown  that  there 
was  a  wide  expanse  of  ocean  north  of  the  Hne 
and  east  of  Asia,  whilst  the  previous  voyage  had 
shown  the  enormous  extent  of  sea  south  of  the 
line.  After  the  circumnavigation  of  the  Victoria 
it  was  clear  to  cosmographers  that  the  world  was 
much  larger  than  had  been  imagined  by  the  an- 
cients ;  or  rather,  perhaps  one  may  say  that  Asia 
was  smaller  than  had  been  thought  by  the  medi- 
aeval writers.  The  dogged  persistence  shown  by 
Magelhaens  in  carrying  out  his  idea,  which  turned 
out  to  be  a  perfectly  justifiable  one,  raises  him 
from  this  point  of  view  to  a  greater  height  than 
Columbus,  whose  month's  voyage  brought  him 
exactly  where  he  thought  he  would  find  land  ac- 
cording to  Toscanelli's  map.  After  Magelhaens, 
as  will  be  seen,  the  whole  coast  lines  of  the  world 
were  roughly  known,  except  for  the  Arctic  Circle 
and  for  Australia. 

The  Emperor  was  naturally  delighted  with 
the  result  of  the  voyage.  He  granted  Del  Cano 
a  pension,  and  a  coat  of  arms  commemorating 
his  services.  The  terms  of  the  grant  are  very 
significant:  or^  two  cinnamon  sticks  saltire proper^ 
three  nutmegs  and  twelve  cloves,  a  chid  gules y  a 
castle  or  J  crest,  a  globe,  bearing  the  motto, 
"  Primus  circumdedisti  me  "  (thou  wert  the  first 
to  go  round  me) ;  supporters,  two  Malay  kings 
crowned,  holding  in  the  exterior  hand  a  spice 
branch  proper.  The  castle,  of  course,  refers  to 
Castile,  but  the  rest  of  the  blazon  indicates  the 
importance  attributed  to  the  voyage  as  resting 
mainly  upon  the  visit  to  the  Spice  Islands.  As 
we  have  already  seen,  however,  the  Portuguese 
recovered   their   position   in    the    Moluccas   im- 


TO  THE   INDIES  WESTWARD. 


117 


mediately    after    the    departure    of    the    Victoria^ 
and   seven   years  later    Cliarles   V.    gave   up   any 


claims   he    might   possess    through    Magelhaens* 
visit. 

But  for  a  long  time  afterwards  the  Spaniards 


Il8  THE   STORY  OF  GEOGRAPHICAL   DISCOVERY. 

Still  cast  longing  eyes  upon  the  Spice  Islands, 
and  the  Fuggers,  the  great  bankers  of  Augsburg, 
who  financed  the  Spanish  monarch,  for  a  long 
time  attempted  to  get  possession  of  Peru,  with 
the  scarcely  disguised  object  of  making  it  a 
"  jumping-place "  from  which  to  make  a  fresh 
attempt  at  obtaining  possession  of  the  Moluccas. 
A  modern  parallel  will  doubtless  occur  to  the 
reader. 

There  are  thus  three  stages  to  be  distinguished 
in  the  successive  discovery  and  delimitation  of 
the  New  World: — 

(i.)  At  first  Columbus  imagined  that  he  had 
actually  reached  'Zipangu  or  Japan,  and  achieved 
the  object  of  his  voyage. 

(ii.)  Then  Amerigo  Vespucci,  by  coasting  down 
South  America,  ascertained  that  there  was  a  huge 
unknown  land  intervening  even  between  Colum- 
bus's discoveries  and  the  long-desired  Spice 
Islands. 

(iii.)  Magelhaens  clinches  this  view  by  tra- 
versing the  Southern  Pacific  for  thousands  of 
miles  before  reaching  the  Moluccas. 

There  is  still  a  fourth  stage  by  which  it  was 
gradually  discovered  that  the  North-west  of 
America  was  not  joined  on  to  Asia,  but  this  stage 
was  only  gradually  reached  and  finally  deter- 
mined by  the  voyages  of  Bering  and  Cook. 

{^Authorities  :  Justin  Winsor,  Christopher  Columbus^  1894  t 
Guillemard,  Ferdinand  Magellan,  1894.] 


TO  THE   INDIES   NORTHWARDS.  II9 


CHAPTER  VIII. 

TO    THE  INDIES  NORTHWARDS — ENGLISH,  FRENCH, 
DUTCH,    AND    RUSSIAN    ROUTES. 

The  discovery  of  the  New  World  had  the  most 
important  consequences  on  the  relative  impor- 
tance of  the  different  nations  of  Europe.  Hith- 
erto the  chief  centres  for  over  two  thousand 
years  had  been  round  the  shores  of  the  Mediter- 
ranean, and,  as  we  have  seen,  Venice,  by  her  cen- 
tral position  and  extensive  trade  to  the  East,  had 
become  a  world-centre  during  the  latter  Middle 
Ages.  But  after  Columbus,  and  still  more  after 
Magelhaens,  the  European  nations  on  the  Atlan- 
tic were  found  to  be  closer  to  the  New  World, 
and,  in  a  measure,  closer  to  the  Spice  Islands, 
which  they  could  reach  all  the  way  by  ship,  in- 
stead of  having  to  pay  expensive  land  freights. 
The  trade  routes  through  Germany  became  at 
once  neglected,  and  it  was  only  in  the  nineteenth 
century  that  she  at  all  recovered  from  the  blow 
given  to  her  by  the  discovery  of  the  new  sea 
routes  in  which  she  could  not  join.  But  to  Eng- 
land, France,  and  the  Low  Countries  the  new 
outlook  promised  a  share  in  the  world's  trade  and 
affairs  generally,  which  they  had  never  hitherto 
possessed  while  the  Mediterranean  was  the  centre 
of  commerce.  If  the  Indies  could  be  reached  by 
sea,  they  were  almost  in  as  fortunate  a  position 
as  Portugal  or  Spain.  Almost  as  soon  as  the  new 
routes  were  discovered  the  Northern  nations  at- 
tempted to  utilise  them,  notwithstandingthe  Bull  of 
Partition,  which  the  French  king  laughed  at,  and 
the  Protestant  English  and  Dutch  had  no  reason 


I20  THE   STORY   OF  GEOGRAPHICAL   DISCOVERY. 

to  respect.  Within  three  years  of  the  return  of 
Columbus  from  his  first  voyage,  Henry  VII.  em- 
ployed John  Cabot,  a  Venetian  settled  in  Bristol, 
with  his  three  sons,  to  attempt  the  voyage  to  the 
Indies  by  the  North-West  Passage.  He  appears 
to  have  re-discovered  Newfoundland  in  1497,  and 
then  in  the  following  year,  failing  to  find  a  pas- 
sage there,  coasted  down  North  America  nearly 
as  far  as  Florida. 

In  1534  Jacques  Cartier  examined  the  river 
St.  Lawrence,  and  his  discoveries  were  later  fol- 
lowed up  by  Samuel  de  Champlain,  who  explored 
some  of  the  great  lakes  near  the  St.  Lawrence, 
and  established  the  French  rule  in  Canada,  or 
Acadie,  as  it  was  then  called. 

Meanwhile  the  English  had  made  an  attempt 
to  reach  the  Indies,  still  by  a  northern  passage, 
but  this  time  in  an  easterly  direction.  Sebastian 
Cabot,  who  had  been  appointed  Grand  Pilot  of 
England  by  Edward  VI.,  directed  a  voyage  of 
exploration  in  1553,  under  Sir  Hugh  Willoughby. 
Only  one  of  these  ships,  with  the  pilot  (Richard 
Chancellor)  on  board,  survived  the  voyage,  reach- 
ing Archangel,  and  then  going  overland  to  Mos- 
cow, where  he  was  favourably  received  by  the 
Czar  of  Russia,  Ivan  the  Terrible.  He  was,  how- 
ever, drowned  on  his  return,  and  no  further  at- 
tempt to  reach  Cathay  by  sea  was  attempted. 

The  North-West  Passage  seemed  thus  to  prom- 
ise better  than  that  by  the  North-East,  and  in 
1576  Martin  Frobisher  started  on  an  exploring 
voyage,  after  having  had  the  honour  of  a  wave 
of  Elizabeth's  hand  as  he  passed  Greenwich. 
He  reached  Greenland,  and  then  Labrador,  and, 
in  a  subsequent  voyage  next  year,  discovered  the 
strait  named  after  him.     His  project  was  taken 


TO  THE  INDIES   NORTHWARDS.  121 

up  by  Sir  Humphrey  Gilbert,  on  whom,  with  his 
brother  Adrian,  Elizabeth  conferred  the  privilege 
of  making  the  passage  to  China  and  the  Moluccas 
by  the  north-westward,  north-eastward,  or  north- 
ward route.  At  the  same  time  a  patent  was 
granted  him  for  discovering  any  lands  unsettled 
by  Christian  princes.  A  settlement  was  made  in 
St.  John's,  Newfoundland,  but  on  the  return 
voyage,  near  the  Azores,  Sir  Humphrey's 
"  frigate  "  (a  small  boat  of  ten  men),  disappeared, 
after  he  had  been  heard  to  call  out,  *'  Courage, 
my  lads;  we  are  as  near  heaven  by  sea  as  by 
land!"     This  happened  in  1583. 

Two  years  after,  another  expedition  was  sent 
out  by  the  merchants  of  London,  under  John 
Davis,  who,  on  this  and  two  subsequent  voyages, 
discovered  several  passages  trending  westward, 
which  warranted  the  hope  of  finding  a  north-west 
passage.  Beside  the  strait  named  after  him,  it  is 
probable  that  on  his  third  voyage,  in  1587,  he 
passed  through  the  passage  now  named  after 
Hudson.  His  discoveries  were  not  followed  up 
for  some  twenty  years,  when  Henry  Hudson  was 
despatched  in  1607  with  a  crew  of  ten  men  and  a 
boy.  He  reached  Spitzbergen,  and  reached  80° 
N.,  and  in  the  following  year  reached  the  North 
(Magnetic)  Pole,  which  was  then  situated  at 
75.22''  N.  Two  of  his  men  were  also  fortunate 
enough  to  see  a  mermaid — probably  an  Eskimo 
woman  in  her  kayak.  In  a  third  voyage,  in  1609, 
he  discovered  the  strait  and  bay  which  now  bear 
his  name,  but  was  marooned  by  his  crew,  and 
never  heard  of  further.  He  had  previously,  for 
a  time,  passed  into  the  service  of  the  Dutch,  and 
had  guided  them  to  the  river  named  after  him, 
on  which  New  York  now  stands.     The  course  of 


122  THE   STORY  OF   GEOGRAPHICAL   DISCOVERY. 

English  discovery  in  the  north  was  for  a  time 
concluded  by  the  voyage  of  William  Baffin  in  1615, 
which  resulted  in  the  discovery  of  the  land  named 
after  him,  as  well  as  many  of  the  islands  to  the 
north  of  America. 

Meanwhile  the  Dutch  had  taken  part  in  ^the 
work  of  discovery  towards  the  north.  They  had 
revolted  against  the  despotism  of  Philip  II.,  who 
was  now  monarch  of  both  Spain  and  Portugal. 
At  first  they  attempted  to  adopt  a  route  which 
would  not  bring  them  into  collision  with  their 
old  masters;  and  in  three  voyages,  between  1594 
and  1597,  William  Barentz  attempted  the  North- 
East  Passage,  under  the  auspices  of  the  States- 
General.  He  discovered  Cherry  Island,  and 
touched  on  Spitzbergen,  but  failed  in  the  main 
object  of  his  search;  and  the  attention  of  the 
Dutch  was  henceforth  directed  to  seizing  the 
Portuguese  route,  rather  than  finding  a  new  one 
for  themselves. 

The  reason  they  were  able  to  do  this  is  a 
curious  instance  of  Nemesis  in  history.  Owing 
to  the  careful  series  of  intermarriages  planned 
out  by  Ferdinand  of  Arragon,  the  Portuguese 
Crown  and  all  its  possessions  became  joined  to 
Spain  in  1580  under  Philip  II.,  just  a  year  after 
the  northern  provinces  of  the  Netherlands  had 
renounced  allegiance  to  Spain.  Consequently 
they  were  free  to  attack  not  alone  Spanish  vessels 
and  colonies,  but  also  those  previously  belonging 
to  Portugal.  As  early  as  1596  Cornelius  Hout- 
man  rounded  the  Cape  and  visited  Sumatra  and 
Bantam,  and  within  fifty  years  the  Dutch  had 
replaced  the  Portuguese  in  many  of  their  Eastern 
possessions.  In  16 14  they  took  Malacca,  and 
with  it   the  command  of   the  Spice  Islands ;  by 


TO  THE   INDIES  NORTHWARDS.  123 

1658  they  had  secured  full  possession  of  Ceylon. 
Much  earlier,  in  1619,  they  had  founded  Batavia 
in  Java,  which  they  made  the  centre  of  their 
East  Indian  possessions,  as  it  still  remains. 

The  English  at  first  attempted  to  imitate  the 
Dutch  in  their  East  Indian  policy.  The  English 
East  India  Company  was  founded  by  Elizabeth 
in  1600,  and  as  early  as  1619  had  forced  the 
Dutch  to  allow  them  to  take  a  third  share  of  the 
profits  of  the  Spice  Islands.  In  order  to  do  this 
several  English  planters  settled  at  Amboyna,  but 
within  four  years  trade  rivalries  had  reached  such 
a  pitch  that  the  Dutch  murdered  some  of  these 
merchants  and  drove  the  rest  from  the  islands. 
As  a  consequence  the  English  Company  devoted 
its  attention  to  the  mainland  of  India  itself,  where 
they  soon  obtained  possession  of  Madras  and 
Bombay,  and  left  the  islands  of  the  Indian  Ocean 
mainly  in  possession  of  the  Dutch.  We  shall  see 
later  the  effect  of  this  upon  the  history  of  geog- 
raphy, for  it  was  owing  to  their  possession  of  the 
East  India  Islands  that  the  Dutch  were  practi- 
cally the  discoverers  of  Australia.  One  result  of 
the  Dutch  East  India  policy  has  left  its  traces 
even  to  the  present  day.  In  165 1  they  established 
a  colony  at  the  Cape  of  Good  Hope,  which  only 
fell  into  English  hands  during  the  Napoleonic 
wars,  when  Napoleon  held  Holland. 

Meanwhile  the  English  had  not  lost  sight  of 
the  possibilities  of  the  North-East  Passage,  if  not 
for  reaching  the  Spice  Islands,  at  any  rate  as  a 
means  of  tapping  the  overland  route  to  China, 
hitherto  monopolised  by  the  Genoese.  In  1558 
an  English  gendeman,  named  Anthony  Jenkinson, 
was  sent  as  ambassador  to  the  Czar  of  Muscovy, 
and  travelled  from  Moscow  as  far  as  Bokhara ; 


124  THE  STORY  OF   GEOGRAPHICAL  DISCOVERY. 

but  he  was  not  very  fortunate  in  his  venture,  and 
England  had  to  be  content  for  some  time  to  re- 
ceive her  Indian  and  Chinese  goods  from  the 
Venetian  argosies  as  before.  But  at  last  they 
saw  no  reason  why  they  should  not  attempt  direct 
relations  with  the  East.  A  company  of  Levant 
merchants  was  formed  in  1583  to  open  out  direct 
communications  with  Aleppo,  Bagdad,  Ormuz,  and 
Goa.  They  were  unsuccessful  at  the  two  latter 
places  owing  to  the  jealousy  of  the  Portuguese, 
but  they  made  arrangements  for  cheaper  transit 
of  Eastern  goods  to  England,  and  in  1587  the  last 
of  the  Venetian  argosies,  a  great  vessel  of  eleven 
hundred  tons,  was  wrecked  off  the  Isle  of  Wight. 
Henceforth  the  English  conducted  their  own 
business  with  the  East,  and  Venetian  and  Portu- 
guese monopoly  was  at  an  end. 

But  the  journeys  of  Chancellor  and  Jenkinson 
to  the  Court  of  Moscow  had  more  far-reaching 
effects;  the  Russians  themselves  were  thereby 
led  to  contemplate  utilising  their  proximity  to 
one  of  the  best  known  routes  to  the  Far  East. 
Shortly  after  Jenkinson's  visit,  the  Czar,  Ivan  the 
Terrible,  began  extending  his  dominions  east- 
ward, sending  at  first  a  number  of  troops  to  ac- 
company the  Russian  merchant  Strogonof  as  far 
as  the  Obi  in  search  of  sables.  Among  the  troops 
were  a  corps  of  six  thousand  Cossacks  commanded 
by  one  named  Vassili  Yermak,  who,  finding  the 
Tartars  an  easy  prey,  determined  at  first  to  set 
up  a  new  kingdom  for  himself.  In  1579  he  was 
successful  in  overcoming  the  Tartars  and  their 
chief  town  Sibir,  near  Tobolsk ;  but,  finding  it 
difficult  to  retain  his  position,  determined  to 
return  to  his  allegiance  to  the  Czar  on  condition 
of  being  supported.     This  was  readily  granted, 


TO   THE   INDIES   NORTHWARDS. 


125 


and  from  that  time  onward  the  Russians  steadily- 
pushed  on  through  to  the  unknown  country  of 
the  north  of  Asia,  since  named  after  the  little 
town  conquered  by  Yermak,  of  which  scarcely 
any  traces  now  remain.  As  early  as  1639  they 
had  reached  the  Pacific  under  Kupilof.  A  force 
was  sent  out  from  Yakutz,  on  the  Lena,  in    1643, 


Russian  map  of  Asia,  1 737. 


which  reached  the  Amur,  and  thus  Russians  came 
for  the  first  time  in  contact  with  the  Chinese,  and 
a  new  method  of  reaching  Cathay  was  thus  ob- 
tained, while  geography  gained  the  knowledge  of 
the  extent  of  Northern  Asia.  For,  about  the 
same  time  (in  1648),  the  Arctic  Ocean  was 
reached  on  the  north  shores  of   Siberia,   and  a 


126  THE  STORY  OF  GEOGRAPHICAL  DISCOVERY. 

fleet  under  the  Cossack  Dishinef  sailed  from  Ko- 
lyma and  reached  as  far  as  the  straits  known  by 
the  name  of  Bering^  It  was  not,  however,  till 
fifty  years  afterwards,  in  1696,  that  the  Russians 
reached  Kamtschatka. 

Notwithstanding  the  access  of  knowledge 
which  had  been  gained  by  these  successive  bold 
pushes  towards  north  and  east,  it  still  remained 
uncertain  whether  Siberia  did  not  join  on  to  the 
northern  part  of  the  New  World  discovered  by 
Columbus  and  Amerigo,  and  in  1728  Peter  the 
Great  sent  out  an  expedition  under  Vitus  Be- 
ring, a  Dane  in  the  Russian  service,  with  the  ex- 
press aim  of  ascertainmg  this  point.  He  reached 
Kamtschatka,  and  there  built  two  vessels  as 
directed  by  the  Czar^  and  started  on  his  voyage 
northward,  coasting  along  the  land.  When  he 
reached  a  little  beyond  67°  N.,  he  found  no  land 
to  the  north  or  east,  and  conceived  he  had  reached 
the  end  of  the  continent.  As  a  matter  of  fact,  he 
was  within  thirty  miles  of  the  west  coast  of  Amer- 
ica; but  of  this  he  does  not  seem  to  have  been 
aware,  being  content  with  solving  the  special 
problem  put  before  him  by  the  Czar.  The  strait 
thus  discovered  by  Bering,  though  not  known 
by  him  to  be  a  strait,  has  ever  since  been  known 
by  his  name.  In  1741,  however,  Bering  again  set 
out  on  a  voyage  of  discovery  to  ascertain  how 
far  to  the  east  America  was,  and  within  a  fort- 
night had  come  within  sight  of  the  lofty  moun- 
tain named  by  him.  Mount  St.  Elias.  Bering  him- 
self died  upon  this  voyage,  on  an  island  also 
named  after  him  ;  he  had  at  last  solved  the  rela- 
tion between  the  Old  and  the  New  Worlds. 

These  voyages  of  Bering,  however,  belong  to 
a  much  later  stage  of  discovery  than  those  we 


TO  THE   INDIES  NORTHWARDS.  127 

Aave  hitherto  been  treating  for  the  last  three 
chapters.  His  explorations  were  undertaken 
mainly  for  scientific  purposes,  and  to  solve  a  scien- 
tific problem,  whereas  all  the  other  researches 
of  Spanish,  Portuguese,  English,  and  Dutch 
were  directed  to  one  end,  that  of  reaching  the 
Spice  Islands  and  Cathay.  The  Portuguese  at 
first  started  out  on  the  search  by  the  slow  method 
of  creeping  down  the  coast  of  Africa;  the  Spanish, 
by  adopting  Columbus's  bold  idea,  had  attempted 
it  by  the  western  route,  and  under  Magellan's  still 
bolder  conception  had  equally  succeeded  in  reach- 
ing it  in  that  way ;  the  English  and  French  sought 
for  a  north-west  passage  to  the  Moluccas;  while 
the  English  and  Dutch  attempted  a  north-easterly 
route.  In  both  directions  the  icy  barrier  of  the 
north  prevented  success.  It  was  reserved,  as  we 
shall  see,  for  the  present  century  to  complete 
the  North-West  Passage  under  Maclure,  and  the 
North-East  by  Nordenskiold,  sailing  with  quite 
different  motives  to  those  which  first  brought  the 
mariners  of  England,  France  and  Holland  within 
the  Arctic  Circle. 

The  net  result  of  ajl  these  attempts  by  the 
nations  of  Europe  to  wrest  from  the  Venetians 
the  monopoly  of  the  Eastern  trade  was  to  add  to 
geography  the  knowledge  of  the  existence  of 
a  New  World  intervening  between  the  western 
shores  of  Europe  and  the  eastern  shores  of  Asia. 
We  have  yet  to  learn  the  means  by  which  the 
New  World  thus  discovered  became  explored  and 
possessed  by  the  European  nations. 

[Authorities:  Cooley  and  Beazeley,  John  and  Sebastian 
Cabot,  1898.] 


128  THE  STORY  OF  GEOGRAPHICAL   DISCOVERY. 

CHAPTER  IX. 

THE    PARTITION    OF    AMERICA. 

We  have  hitherto  been  deaHng  with  the  dis- 
coveries made  b}"  Spanish  and  Portuguese  along 
the  coast  of  the  New  World,  but  early  in  the  six- 
teenth century  they  began  to  put  foot  on  terra 
^r/;^^  and  explore  the  interior.  As  early  as  15 13 
Vasco  Nunez  de  Balboa  ascended  the  highest 
peak  in  the  range  running  from  the  Isthmus  of 
Panama,  and  saw  for  the  first  time  by  European 
eyes  the  great  ocean  afterwards  to  be  named  by 
Magellan  the  Pacific.  He  there  heard  that  the 
country  to  the  south  extended  without  end,  and 
was  inhabited  by  great  nations,  with  an  abun- 
dance of  gold.  Among  his  companions  who  heard 
of  this  golden  country,  or  El  Dorado,  was  one 
Francisco  Pizarro,  who  was  destined  to  test  the 
report.  But  a  similar  report  had  reached  the 
ears  of  Diego  Velasquez,  governor  of  Cuba,  as  to 
a  great  nation  possessed  of  much  gold  to  the 
north  of  Darien.  He  accordingly  despatched  his 
lieutenant  Hernando  Cortes  in  15 19  to  investi- 
gate, with  ten  ships,  six  hundred  and  fifty  men, 
and  some  eighteen  horses.  When  he  landed  at 
the  port  named  by  him  Vera  Cruz,  the  appearance 
of  his  men,  and  more  especially  of  his  horses,  as- 
tonished and  alarmed  the  natives  of  Mexico,  then 
a  large  and  semi-civilised  state  under  the  rule  of 
Montezuma,  the  last  representative  of  the  Aztecs, 
who  in  the  twelfth  century  had  succeeded  the 
Toltecs,  a  people  that  had  settled  on  the  Mexican 
table-land  as  early  probably  as  the  seventh  cen- 
tury, introducing  the  use  of  metals  and  roads  and 


THE   PARTITION   OF  AMERICA.  1 29 

many  of  the  elements  of  civilisation.  Montezuma 
is  reported  to  have  been  able  to  range  no  less 
than  two  hundred  thousand  men  under  his  ban- 
ners, but  he  showed  his  opinion  of  the  Spaniards 
by  sending  them  costly  presents,  gold  and  silver 
and  costly  stuffs.  This  only  aroused  the  cupidity 
of  Cortes,  who  determined'  to  make  a  bold  stroke 
for  the  conquest  of  such  a  rich  prize.  He  burnt 
his  ships  and  advanced  into  the  interior  of  the 
country,  conquering  on  his  way  the  tribe  of  the 
Tlascalans,  who  had  been  at  war  with  the  Mexi- 
cans, but,  when  conquered,  were  ready  to  assist 
him  against  them.  With  their  aid  he  succeeded 
in  seizing  the  Mexican  king,  who  was  forced  to 
yield  a  huge  tribute.  After  many  struggles  Cor- 
tes found  himself  master  of  the  capital,  and  of  all 
the  resources  of  the  Mexican  Empire  (1521). 
These  he  hastened  to  place  at  the  feet  of  the  Em- 
peror Charles  V.,  who  appointed  him  Governor 
and  Captain-General  of  Mexico.  It  is  character- 
istic throughout  the  history  of  the  New  World, 
that  none  of  the  soldiers  of  fortune  who  found  it 
such  an  easy  prey  ever  thought  of  setting  up  an 
empire  for  himself.  This  is  a  testimony  to  the 
influence  national  feeling  had  upon  the  minds 
even  of  the  most  lawless,  and  the  result  was  that 
Europe  and  European  ideas  were  brought  over 
into  America,  or  rather  the  New  World  became 
tributary  to  Europe. 

As  soon  as  Cortes  had  established  himself  he 
fitted  out  expeditions  to  explore  the  country,  and 
himself  reached  Honduras  after  a  remarkable 
journey  for  over  1000  miles,  in  which  he  was 
only  guided  by  a  map  on  cotton  cloth,  on  which 
the  Cacique  of  Tabasco  had  painted  all  the  towns, 
rivers,    and  mountains  of  the  country  as  far  as 

9 


130  THE  STORY  OF  GEOGRAPHICAL   DISCOVERY. 

Nicaragua.  He  also  despatched  a  small  fleet  un- 
der Alvarro  de  Saavedra  to  support  a  Spanish  ex- 
pedition which  had  been  sent  to  the  Moluccas 
under  Sebastian  de]  Cano,  and  which  arrived  at 
Tidor  in  1527,  to  the  astonishment  of  Spanish 
and  Portuguese  alike  when  they  heard  he  had 
started  from  New  Castile.  In  1536,  Cortes,  who 
had  been  in  the  meantime  shorn  of  much  of  his 
power,  conducted  an  expedition  by  sea  along  the 
north-west  coast  of  Mexico,  and  reached  what  he 
considered  to  be  a  great  island.  He  identified  this 
with  an  imaginary  island  in  the  Far  East,  near  the 
terrestrial  paradise  to  which  the  name  of  Califor- 
nia had  been  given  in  a  contemporary  romance. 
Thus,  owing  to  Cortes,  almost  the  whole  of  Cen- 
tral America  had  become  known  before  his  death 
in  1540.  Similarly,  at  a  much  earlier  period. 
Ponce  de  Leon  had  thought  he  had  discovered 
another  great  island  in  Florida  in  15 12,  whither 
he  had  gone  in  search  of  Bayuca,  a  fabled  island 
of  the  Indians,  in  which  they  stated  was  a  foun- 
tain of  eternal  youth.  At  the  time  of  Cortes'  first 
attempt  on  Mexico,  Pineda  had  coasted  round 
Florida,  and  connected  it  with  the  rest  of  the 
coast  of  Mexico,  which  he  traversed  as  far  as 
Vera  Cruz. 

The  exploits  of  Cortes  were  all  important  in 
their  effects.  He  had  proved  with  what  ease  a 
handful  of  men  might  overjcome  an  empire  and 
gain  unparalleled  riches.  Francisco  Pizarro  was 
encouraged  by  the  success  of  Cortes  to  attempt 
the  discovery  of  the  El  Dorado  he  had  heard  of 
when  on  Balboa's  expedition.  With  a  companion 
named  Diego  de  Almegro  he  made  several  coast- 
ing expeditions  down  the  north-west  coast  of 
South  America,  during  which  they  heard  of  the 


THE   PARTITION   OF  AMERICA.  13 1 

empire  of  the  Incas  on  the  plateau  of  Peru.  They 
also  obtained  sufficient  gold  and  silver  to  raise 
their  hopes  of  the  riches  of  the  country,  and  re- 
turned to  Spain  to  report  to  the  Emperor.  Pi- 
zarro  obtained  permission  from  Charles  V.  to  at- 
tempt the  conquest  of  Peru,  of  which  he  was 
named  Governor  and  Captain-General,  on  condi- 
tion of  paying  a  tribute  of  one-fifth  of  the  treas- 
ure he  might  obtain.  He  started  in  February, 
1531,  with  a  small  force  of  180  men,  of  whom 
thirty-six  were  horsemen.  Adopting  the  policy 
of  Cortes,  he  pushed  directly  for  the  capital 
Cuzco,  where  they  managed  to  seize  Atahualpa, 
the  Inca  of  the  time.  He  attempted  to  ransom 
himself  by  agreeing  to  fill  the  room  in  which  he 
was  confined,  twenty-two  feet  long  by  sixteen 
wide,  with  bars  of  gold  as  high  as  the  hand  could 
reach.  He  carried  out  this  prodigious  promise, 
and  Pizarro's  companions  found  themselves  in  pos- 
session of  booty  equal  to  three  millions  sterling. 

Atahualpa  was,  however,  not  released,  but 
condemned  to  death  on  a  frivolous  pretext,  while 
Pizarro  dismissed  his  followers,  fully  confident 
that  the  wealth  they  carried  off  would  attract  as 
many  men  as  he  could  desire  to  El  Dorado.  He 
settled  himself  at  Lima,  near  the  coast,  in  1534. 
Meanwhile  Almegro  had  been  despatched  south, 
and  made  himself  master  of  Chili.  Another 
expedition  in  1539  was  conducted  by  Pizarro's 
brother  Gonzales  across  the  Andes,  and  reached 
the  sources  of  the  Amazon,  which  one  of  his 
companions,  Francisco  de  Orellana,  traversed  as 
far  as  the  mouth.  This  he  reached  in  August, 
1541,  after  a  voyage  of  one  thousand  leagues. 
The  river  was  named  after  Orellana,  but,  from 
reports  he  made  of  the  existence  of  a   tribe  of 


132  THE   STORY   OF   GEOGRAPHICAL  DISCOVERY. 

female  warriors,  was  afterwards  known  as  the 
river  of  the  Amazons;  The  author  spread  re- 
ports of  another  El  Dorado  to  the  north,  in 
which  the  roofs  of  the  temples  were  covered 
with  gold.  This  report  afterwards  led  to  the 
disastrous  expedition  of  Sir  Walter  Raleigh  to 
Guiana.  By  his  voyage  Orellana  connected  the 
Spanish  and  Portuguese  "  spheres  of  influence  " 
in  the  New  World  of  Amerigo.  By  the  year 
1540  the  main  outlines  of  Central  and  South 
America  and  something  of  the  interior  had  been 
made  known  by  the  Spanish  adventurers  within 
half  a  century  of  Columbus's  first  voyage.  Ow- 
ing to  the  papal  bull  Portugal  possessed  Brazil, 
but  all  the  rest  of  the  huge  stretch  of  country 
was  claimed  for  Spain.  The  Portuguese  wisely 
treated  Brazil  as  an  outlet  for  their  overflowing 
population,  which  settled  there  in  large  numbers 
and  established  plantations.  The  Spaniards,  on 
the  other  hand,  only  regarded  their  huge  posses- 
sions as  exclusive  markets  to  be  merely  visited 
by  them.  Rich  mines  of  gold,  silver,  and  mercury 
were  discovered  in  Mexico  and  Peru,  especially 
in  the  far-famed  mines  of  Potosi,  and  these  were 
exploited  entirely  in  the  interests  of  Spain,  which 
acted  as  a  sieve  by  which  the  precious  metals 
were  poured  into  Europe,  raising  prices  through- 
out the  Old  World.  In  return  European  merchan- 
dise was  sent  in  the  return  voyages  of  the  Span- 
ish galleons  to  New  Spain,  which  could  only  buy 
Flemish  cloth,  for  example,  through  Spanish  in- 
termediaries, who  raised  its  price  to  three  times 
the  original  cost.  This  short-sighted  policy  on 
the  part  of  Spain  naturally  encouraged  smug- 
gling, and  attracted  the  ships  of  all  nations 
towards  that  pursuit. 


THE    PARTITION   OF  AMERICA.  1 33 

We  have  already  seen  the  first  attempts  of  the 
French  and  English  in  the  exploration  of  the 
north-eaat  coast  of  North  America  ;  but  during 
the  sixteenth  century  very  little  was  done  to 
settle  on  such  inhospitable  shores,  which  did  not 
offer  anything  like  the  rich  prizes  that  Tropical 
America  afforded.  Neither  the  exploration  of 
Cartier  in  1534,  or  that  of  the  Cabots  much 
earlier,  was  followed  by  any  attempt  to  possess 
the  land.  Breton  fishermen  visited  the  fisheries 
off  Newfoundland,  and  various  explorers  at- 
tempted to  find  openings  which  would  give  them 
a  north-west  passage,  but  otherwise  the  more 
northerly  part  of  the  continent  was  left  unoccu- 
pied till  the  beginning  of  the  seventeenth  cen- 
tury. The  first  town  founded  was  that  of  St. 
Augustine,  in  Florida,  in  1565,  but  this  was  de- 
stroyed three  years  later  by  a  French  expedition. 
Sir  Walter  Raleigh  attempted  to  found  a  colony 
in  1584  near  where  Virginia  now  stands,  but  it 
failed  after  three  years,  and  it  was  not  till  the 
reign  of  James  I.  that  an  organised  attempt  was 
made  by  England  to  establish  plantations,  as 
they  were  then  called,  on  the  North  American 
coast. 

Two  Chartered  Companies,  the  one  to  the 
north  named  the  Plymouth  Company,  and  the 
one  to  the  south  named  the  London  Company 
(both  founded  in  1606),  nominally  divided  be- 
tween them  all  the  coast  from  Nova  Scotia  to 
Florida.  These  large  tracts  of  country  were  dur- 
ing the  seventeenth  century  slowly  parcelled  out 
into  smaller  states,  mainly  Puritan  in  the  north 
(New  England),  High  Church  and  Catholic  in  the 
south  (Virginia  and  Maryland).  But  between 
the  two,  and  on  the  banks  of  the  Hudson  and  the 


134  THE   STORY   OF   GEOGRAPHICAL   DISCOVERY. 

Delaware,  two  other  European  nations  had  also 
formed  plantations — the  I)utch  along  the  Hud- 
son from  1609  forming  the  New  Netherlands,  and 
the  Swedes  from  1636  along  the  Delaware  form- 
ing New  Sweden.  The  latter,  however,  lasted 
only  a  few  years,  and  was  absorbed  by  the  Dutch 
in  1655.  The  capital  of  New  Netherlands  was  es- 
tablished on  Manhattan  Island,  to  the  south  of 
the  palisade  still  known  as  Wall  Street,  and  the 
city  was  named  New  Amsterdam.  The  Hudson 
is  such  an  important  artery  of  commerce  between 
the  Atlantic  and  the  great  lakes,  that  this  wedge 
between  the  two  sets  of  English  colonies  would 
have  been  a  bar  to  any  future  progress.  This 
was  recognised  by  Charles  H.,  who  in  1664  de- 
spatched an  expedition  to  demand  its  surrender, 
even  though  England  and  Holland  were  at  that 
time  at  peace.  New  Amsterdam  was  taken,  and 
named  New  York,  after  the  king's  brother,  the 
Duke  of  York,  afterwards  James  H.  New  Sweden, 
which  at  the  same  time  fell  into  the  English 
hands,  was  sold  as  a  proprietary  plantation  to  a 
Jersey  man,  Sir  George  Carteret,  and  to  a  Quaker, 
William  Penn.  By  this  somewhat  high-handed 
procedure  the  whole  coast-line  down  to  Florida 
was  in  English  hands. 

Both  the  London  arid  Plymouth  Companies 
had  started  to  form  plantations  in  1607,  and  in 
that  very  year  the  French  made  their  first  effec- 
tive settlements  in  America,  at  Port  Royal  and  at 
Nova  Scotia,  then  called  Acadie ;  while,  the  fol- 
lowing year,  Samuel  de  Champlain  made  settle- 
ments at  Quebec,  and  founded  French  Canada. 
He  explored  the  lake  country,  and  established 
settlements  down  the  banks  of  the  St.  Lawrence, 
along  which  French  activity  for  a  long  time  con- 


THE   PARTITION   OF  AMERICA.  135 

fined  itself.  Between  the  French  and  the  English 
settlements  roved  the  warlike  Five  Nations  of  the 
Iroquois  Indians,  and  Champlain,  whose  settle- 
ments were  in  the  country  of  the  Algonquins,  was 
obliged  to  take  their  part  and  make  the  Iroquois 
the  enemies  of  France,  which  had  important  ef- 
fects upon  the  final  struggle  between  England 
and  France  in  the  eighteenth  century.  The 
French  continued  their  exploration  of  the  interior 
of  the  continent.  In  1673  Marquette  discovered 
the  Mississippi  (Missi  Sepe,  "  the  great  water"), 
and  descended  it  as  far  as  the  mouth  of  the  Ar- 
kansas, but  the  work  of  exploring  the  Mississippi 
valley  was  undertaken  by  Robert  de  la  Salle.  He 
had  already  discovered  the  Ohio  and  Illinois 
rivers,  and  in  three  expeditions,  between  1680  and 
1682,  succeeded  in  working  his  way  right  down 
to  the  mouth  of  the  Mississippi,  giving  to  the  huge 
tract  of  country  which  he  had  thus  traversed  the 
name  of  Louisiana,  after  Louis  XIV. 

France  thenceforth  claimed  the  whole  hinter- 
land, as  we  should  now  call  it,  of  North  America, 
the  English  being  confined  to  the  comparatively 
narrow  strip  of  country  east  of  the  Alleghanies. 
New  Orleans  was  founded  at  the  mouth  of  the 
Mississippi  in  1716,  and  named  after  the  Prince 
Regent;  and  French  activity  ranged  between 
Quebec  and  New  Orleans,  leaving  many  traces 
even  to  the  present  day,  in  French  names  like 
Mobile,  Detroit,  and  the  like,  through  the  inter- 
vening country.  The  situation  at  the  commence- 
ment of  the  eighteenth  century  was  remarkably 
similar  to  that  of  the  Gold  Coast  in  Africa  at  the 
end  of  the  nineteenth.  The  French  persistently 
attempted  to  encroach  upon  the  English  sphere 
of  influence,  and  it  was  in  attempting  to  define 


136  THE   STORY   OF   GEOGRAPHICAL   DISCOVERY. 

the  two  spheres  that  George  Washington  learned 
his  first  lesson  in  diplomacy  and  strategy.  The 
French  and  English  American  colonies  were  al- 
most perpetually  at  war  with  one  another,  the 
objective  being  the  spot  where  Pittsburg  now 
stands,  which  was  regarded  as  the  gate  of  the 
west,  overlooking  as  it  did  the  valley  of  the  Ohio. 
Here  Duquesne  founded  the  fort  named  after 
himself,  and  it  was  not  till  1758  that  this  was 
finally  wrested  from  French  hands  ;  v/hile,  in  the 
following  year,  Wolfe,  by  his  capture  of  Quebec, 
overthrew  the  whole  French  power  in  North 
America.  Throughout  the  long  fight  the  English 
had  been  much  assisted  by  the  guerilla  warfare 
of  the  Iroquois  against  the  French. 

By  the  Treaty  of  Paris  in  1763  the  whole  of 
French  America  was  ceded  to  England,  which 
also  obtained  possession  of  Florida  from  Spain,  in 
exchange  for  the  Philippines,  captured  during  the 
war.  As  a  compensation  all  the  country  west  of 
the  Mississippi  became  joined  on  to  the  Spanish 
possessions  in  Mexico.  These  of  course  became 
nominally  French  when  Napoleon's  brother  Jo- 
seph was  placed  on  the  Spanish  throne,  but 
Napoleon  sold  them  to  the  United  States  in  1803, 
so  that  no  barrier  existed  to  the  westward  spread 
of  the  States.  Long  previously  to  this,  a  Char- 
tered Company  had  been  formed  in  1670,  with 
Prince  Rupert  at  its  head,  to  trade  with  the  In- 
dians for  furs.in  Hudson's  Bay,  then  and  for  some 
time  afterwards  called  Rupertsland.  The  Hudson 
Bay  Company  gradually  extended  its  knowledge 
of  the  northerly  parts  of  America  towards  the 
Rocky  Mountains,  but  it  was  not  till  1740  that 
Varenne  de  la  Varanderye  discovered  their  ex- 
tent.    In  1769-71   a  fur  trader  named   Hearne 


THE   PARTITION   OF   AMERICA.  137 

traced  the  river  Coppermine  to  the  sea,  while  it 
was  not  till  1793  that  Mr.  (after  Sir  A.)  Mac- 
kenzie discovered  the  river  now  named  after  him, 
and  crossed  the  continent  of  North  America  from 
Atlantic  to  Pacific.  One  of  the  reasons  for  this 
late  exploration  of  the  north-west  of  North 
America  was  a  geographical  myth  started  by  a 
Spanish  voyager  named  Juan  de  Fuca  as  early  as 
1592.  Coasting  as  far  as  Vancouver  Island,  he 
entered  the  inlet  to  the  south  of  it,  and  not  being 
able  to  see  land  to  the  north,  brought  back  a 
report  of  a  huge  sea  spreading  over  all  that  part 
of  the  country,  which  most  geographers  assumed 
to  pass  over  into  Hudson  Bay  or  the  neighbour- 
hood. It  was  this  report  as  much  as  anything 
which  encouraged  hopes  of  finding  the  north-west 
passage  in  a  latitude  low  enough  to  be  free  from 
ice. 

As  soon  as  the  United  States  got  possession 
of  the  land  west  of  the  Mississippi  they  began  to 
explore  it,  and  between  1804  and  1807  Lewis  and 
Clarke  had  explored  the  whole  basin  of  the  Mis- 
souri, while  Pike  had  investigated  the  country 
between  the  sources  of  the  Mississippi  and  the 
Red  River.  We  have  already  seen  that  Bering 
had  carried  over  Russian  investigation  and 
dominion  into  Alaska,  and  it  was  in  order  to 
avoid  her  encroachments  down  towards  the 
Californian  coast  that  President  Monroe  put  forth 
in  1823  the  doctrine  that  no  further  colonisation 
of  the  Americas  would  be  permitted  by  the  United 
States.  In  this  year  Russia  agreed  to  limit  her 
claims  to  the  country  north  of  54.40°.  The  States 
subsequently  acquired  California  and  other  ad- 
joining states  during  their  war  with  Mexico  in 
1848,  just  before  gold  was    discovered  in  the 


138  THE  STORY  OF  GEOGRAPHICAL  DISCOVERY. 

Sacramento  valley.  The  land  between  California 
and  Alaska  was  held  in  joint  possession  between 
Great  Britain  and  the  States,  and  was  known  as 
the  Oregon  Territory.  Lewis  and  Clarke  had 
explored  the  Columbia  River,  while  Vancouver 
had  much  earlier  examined  the  island  which  now 
bears  his  name,  so  that  both  countries  appear  to 
have  some  rights  of  discovery  to  the  district.  At 
one  time  the  inhabitants  of  the  States  were 
inclined  to  claim  all  the  country  as  far  as  the 
Russian  boundary  54.40°,  and  a  war-cry  arose 
"54.40°  or  fight;  "  but  in  1846  the  territory  was 
divided  by  the  49th  parallel,  and  at  this  date  we 
may  say  the  partition  of  America  was  complete, 
and  all  that  remained  to  be  known  of  it  was  the 
ice-bound  northern  coast,  over  which  so  much 
heroic  enterprise  has  been  displayed. 

The  history  of  geographical  discovery  in 
America  is  thus  in  large  measure  a  history  of  con- 
quest. Men  got  to  know  both  coast-line  and 
interior  while  endeavouring  either  to  trade  or  to 
settle  where  nature  was  propitious,  or  the  country 
afforded  mineral  or  vegetable  wealth  that  could  be 
easily  transported.  Of  the  coabL  early  knowledge 
was  acquired  for  geography  ;  but  where  the  conti- 
nent broadens  out  either  north  or  south,  making 
the  interior  inaccessible  for  trade  purposes  with 
the  coasts,  ignorance  remained  even  down  to  the 
nineteenth  century.  Even  to  the  present  day  the 
country  south  of  ^  the  valley  of  the  Amazon  is 
perhaps  as  little  known  as  any  portion  of  the 
earth's  surface,  while,  as  we  have  seen,  it  was  not 
till  the  early  years  of  the  nineteenth  century  that 
any  knowledge  was  acquired  of  the  huge  tract  oi 
country  between  the  Mississippi  and  the  Rockj 
Mountains.     It  was  the  natural  expansion  of  th( 


AUSTRALIA  AND  THE   SOUTH   SEAS.  139 

United  States,  rendered  possible  by  the  cession 
of  this  tract  to  the  States  by  Napoleon  in  1803, 
that  brought  it  within  the  knowledge  of  all.  That 
expansion  was  chiefly  due  to  the  improved 
methods  of  communication  which  steam  has 
given  to  mankind  only  within  this  century.  But 
for  this  the  region  east  of  the  Rocky  Mountains 
would  possibly  be  as  little  known  to  Europeans, 
even  at  the  present  day,  as  the  Soudan  or  Somali- 
land.  It  is  owing  to  this  natural  expansion  of 
the  States,  and  in  minor  measure  of  Canada,  that 
few  great  names  of  geographical  explorers  are 
connected  with  our  knowledge  of  the  interior  of 
North  America.  Unknown  settlers  have  been  the 
pioneers  of  geography,  and  not  as  elsewhere  has 
the  reverse  been  the  case.  In  the  two  other  con- 
tinents whose  geographical  history  we  have  still 
to  trace,  Australia  and  Africa,  explorers  have 
preceded  settlers  or  conquerors,  and  we  can  gen- 
erally follow  the  course  of  geographical  discovery 
in  their  case  without  the  necessity  of  discussing 
their  political  history. 

[Authorities  :YI\nsor,  From  Cartier  to  Frontenac ;  Gelcich, 
in  Mittheilungeti  of  Geographical  Society  of  Vienna,  1892.] 


CHAPTER  X. 

AUSTRALIA    AND    THE    SOUTH    SEAS TASMAN 

AND    COOK. 

If  one  looks  at  the  west  coastof  Australia  one 
is  struck  by  the  large  number  of  Dutch  names 
^hich  are  jotted  down  the  coast,    There  are  Hoog 


I40  THE   STORY   OF   GEOGRAPHICAL   DISCOVERY. 

Island,  Diemen's  Bay,  Houtman's  Abrolhos,  De 
Wit  land,  and  the  Archipelago  of  Nuyts,  besides 
Dirk  Hartog's  Island  and  Cape  Leeuwin.  To  the 
extreme  north  we  find  the  Ciulf  of  Carpentaria, 
and  to  the  extreme  south  the  island  which  used 
to  be  called  Van  Diemen's  Land.  It  is  not  alto- 
gether to  be  w^ondered  at  that  almost  to  the 
mid^dle  of  this  century  the  land  we  now  call 
Australia  was  tolerably  well  known  as  New  Hol- 


y  ■Jd*iJietnin    ■ 

I.  a  Ah  Tasrrhn ^^ 


TERRES  AUSTRALES 

dopris  d  Anvil  I  e. 

•746. 


land.  If  the  Dutch  had  struck  the  more  fertile 
eastern  shores  of  the  Australian  continent,  it 
might  have  been  called  with  reason  New  Holland 
to  the  present  day  ;  but  there  is  scarcely  any  long 
coast-line  of  the  world  so  inhospitable  and  so 
little  promising  as  that  of  Western  Australia,  and 
one  can  easily  understand  how  the  Dutch,  though 
they  explored  it,  did  not  care  to  take  possession 
of  it. 

But  though  the  Dutch  were  the  first  to  explore 


AUSTRALIA  AND   THE   SOUTH   SEAS.  14  ( 

any  considerable  stretch  of  Australian  coast,  they 
were  by  no  means  the  first  to  sight  it.  As  early 
as  1542  a  Spanish  expedition,  under  Luis  Lopez 
de  Villalobos,  was  despatched  to  follow  up  the 
discoveries  of  Magellan  in  the  Pacific  Ocean  with- 
in the  Spanish  sphere  of  influence.  He  discovered 
several  of  the  islands  of  Polynesia,  and  attempted 
to  seize  the  Philippines,  but  his  fleet  had  to  return 
to  New  Spain.  One  of  the  ships  coasted  along 
an  island  to  which  was  given  the  name  of  New 
Guinea,  and  was  thought  to  be  part  of  the  great 
unknown  southern  land  which  Ptolemy  had  im- 
agined to  exist  in  the  south  of  the  Indian  Ocean, 
and  to  be  connected  in  some  way  with  Tierra  del 
Fuego.  Curiosity  was  thus  aroused,  and  in  1606 
Pedro  de  Quiros  was  despatched  on  a  voyage  to 
the  South  Seas  with  three  ships.  He  discovered 
the  New  Hebrides,  and  believed  it  formed  part  of 
the  southern  continent,  and  he  therefore  named 
it  Australia  del  Espiritu  Santo,  and  hastened  home 
to  obtain  the  viceroyalty  of  this  new  possession. 
One  of  his  ships  got  separated  from  him,  and  the 
commander,  Luys  Naz  de  Torres,  sailed  farther 
to  the  south-west,  and  thereby  learned  that  the 
New  Australia  was  not  a  continent  but  an  island. 
He  proceeded  farther  till  he  came  to  New  Guinea, 
which  he  coasted  along  the  south  coast,  and  seeing 
land  to  the  south  of  him,  he  thus  passed  through 
the  straits  since  named  after  him,  and  was  prob- 
ably the  first  European  to  see  the  continent  of 
Australia.  In  the  very  same  year  (1606)  the 
Dutch  yacht  named  the  Duyfken  is  said  to  have 
coasted  along  the  south  and  west  coast  of  New 
Guinea  nearly  a  thousand  miles,  till  they  reached 
Cape  Keerweer,  or  "  turn  again."  This  was  prob- 
ably the  north-west  coast  of  Australia.     In   the 


142  THE  STORY  OF  GEOGRAPHICAL  DISCOVERY. 

first  thirty  years  of  the  seventeenth  century  the 
Dutch  followed  the  west  coast  of  Australia  with 
as  much  industry  as  the  Portuguese  had  done  with 
the  west  coast  of  Africa,  leaving  up  to  the  present 
day  signs  of  their  explorations  in  the  names  of 
islands,  bays,  and  capes.  Dirk  Hartog,  in  the 
Endraaght,  discovered  that  Land  which  is  named 
after  his  ship,  and  the  cape  and  roadstead  named 
after  himself,  in  1616.  Jan  Edels  left  his  name 
upon  the  western  coast  in  1619  ;  while,  three  years 
later,  a  ship  named  the  Lioness  or  Leemvin  reached 
the  most  western  point  of  the  continent,  to  which 
its  name  is  still  attached.  Five  years  later,  in 
1627,  De  Nuyts  coasted  round  the  south  coast  of 
Australia;  while  in  the  same  year  a  Dutch  com- 
mander named  Carpenter  discovered  and  gave  his 
name  to  the  immense  indentation  still  known  as 
the  Gulf  of  Carpentaria. 

But  still  more  important  discoveries  were  made 
in  1642  by  an  expedition  sent  out  from  Batavia 
under  Abel  Janssen  Tasman  to  investigate  the 
real  extent  of  the  southern  land.  After  the  voy- 
ages of  the  Leeuwin  and  De  Nuyts  it  was  seen 
that  the  southern  coast  of  the  new  land  trended 
to  the  east,  instead  of  working  round  to  the  west, 
as  would  have  been  the  case  if  Ptolemy's  views 
had  been  correct.  Tasman's  problem  was  to  dis- 
cover whether  it  was  connected  with  the  great 
southern  land  assumed  to  lie  to  the  south  of  South 
America.  Tasman  first  sailed  from  Mauritius, 
and  then  directing  his  course  to  the  south-east, 
going  much  more  south  than  Cape  Leeuwin,  at 
last  reached  land  in  latitude  43.30°  and  longitude 
163.50°.  This  he  called  Van  Diemen's  Land, 
after  the  name  of  the  Governor-General  of  Bata- 
via, and  it  was  assumed  that  this  joined  on  to  the 


AUSTRALIA  AND   THE   SOUTH   SEAS.  1 43 

land  already  discovered  by  De  Nuyts.  Sailing 
farther  to  the  eastward,  Tasman  came  out  into 
the  open  sea  again,  and  thus  appeared  to  prove 
that  the  newly  discovered  land  was  not  connected 
with  the  great  unknown  continent  round  the  south 
pole. 

But  he  soon  came  across  land  which  might 
possibly  answer  to  that  description,  and  he  called 
it  Staaten  Land,  in  honour  of  the  States-General 
of  the  Netherlands.  This  was  undoubtedly  some 
part  of  New  Zealand.  Still  steering  eastward, 
but  with  a  more  northerly  trend,  Tasman  dis- 
covered several  islands  in  the  Pacific,  and  ulti- 
mately reached  Batavia  after  touching  on  New 
Guinea.  His  discoveries  were  a  great  advance  on 
previous  knowledge ;  he  had  at  any  rate  reduced 
the  possible  dirhensions  of  the  unknown  continent 
of  the  south  within  narrow  limits,  and  his  discov- 
eries were  justly  inscribed  upon  the  map  of  the 
world  cut  in  stone  upon  the  new  Staathaus  in 
Amsterdam,  in  which  the  name  New  Holland  was 
given  by  order  of  the  States-General  to  the  west- 
ern part  of  the  "  terra  Australis."  When  England 
for  a  time  became  joined  on  to  Holland  under 
the  rule  of  William  HI.,  William  Dampier  was  de- 
spatched to  New  Holland  to  make  further  discov- 
eries. He  retraced  the  explorations  of  the  Dutch 
from  Dirk  Hartog's  Bay  to  New  Guinea,  and  ap- 
pears to  have  been  the  first  European  to  have 
noticed  the  habits  of  the  kangaroo  ;  otherwise  his 
voyage  did  not  add  much  to  geographical  knowl- 
edge, though  when  he  left  the  coasts  of  New  Gui- 
nea he  steered  between  New  England  and  New 
Ireland. 

As  a  result  of  these  Dutch  voyages  the  exist- 
ence of  a  great  land  somewhere  to  the  south-east 


144  THE  STORY  OF  GEOGRAPHICAL   DISCOVERY. 

of  Asia  became  common  property  to  all  civilised 
men.  As  an  instance  of  this  familiarity  many 
years  before  Cook's  epoch-making  voyages,  it 
may  be  mentioned  that  in  1699  Captain  Lemuel 
Gulliver  (in  Swift's  celebrated  romance)  arrived 
at  the  kingdom  of  Lilliput  by  steering  north-west 
from  Van  Diemen':  Land,  which  he  mentions  by 
name.  Lilliput,  it  would  thus  appear,  was  situated 
somewhere  in  the  neighbourhood  of  the  great 
Bight  of  Australia.  This  curious  mixture  of 
definite  knowledge  and  vague  ignorance  on  the 
part  of  Swift  exactly  corresponds  to  the  state  of 
geographical  knowledge  about  Australia  in  his 
days,  as  is  shown  in  the  preceding  map  of  those 
parts  of  the  world,  as  given  by  the  great  French 
cartographer  D'Anville  in  1746  (p.  140). 

These  discoveries  of  the  Spanish  and  Dutch 
were  direct  results  and  corollaries  of  the  great 
search  for  the  Spice  Islands,  which  has  formed 
the  main  subject  of  our  inquiries.  The  discover- 
ies were  mostly  made  by  ships  fitted  out  in  the 
Malay  archipelago,  if  not  from  the  Spice  Islands 
themselves.  But  at  the  beginning  of  the  eight- 
eenth century  new  motives  came  into  play  in  the 
search  for  new  lands;  by  that  time  almost  the 
whole  coast-line  of  the  world  was  roughly  known. 
The  Portuguese  had  coasted  Africa,  the  Spanish 
South  America,  the  English  most  of  the  east  of 
North  America,  while  Central  America  was  known 
through  the  Spaniards.  Many  of  the  islands  of 
the  Pacific  Ocean  had  been  touched  upon,  though 
not  accurately  surveyed,  and  there  remained  only 
the  north-west  coast  of  America  and  the  north- 
east coast  of  Asia  to  be  explored,  while  the  great 
remaining  problem  of  geography  was  to  discov- 
er if  the   great    southern   continent  assumed  by 


AUSTRALIA  AND  THE  SOUTH  SEAS.  1 45 

Ptolemy  existed,  and,  if  so,  what  were  its  dimen- 
sions. It  happened  that  all  these  problems  of 
coast-line  geography,  if  we  may  so  call  it,  were 
destined  to  be  solved  by  one  man,  an  English- 
man named  James  Cook,  who,  with  Prince  Henry, 
Magellan,  and  Tasman,  may  be  said  to  have  de- 
termined the  limits  of  the  habitable  land. 

His  voyages  were  made  in  the  interests,  not 
of  trade  or  conquest,  but  of  scientific  curiosity  ; 
and  they  were,  appropriately  enough,  begun  in  the 
interests  of  quite  a  different  science  than  that  of 
geography.  The  English  astronomer  Halley  had 
left  as  a  sort  of  legacy  the  task  of  examining  the 
transit  of  Venus,  which  he  predicted  for  the  year 
1769,  pointing  out  its  paramount  importance  for 
determining  the  distance  of  the  sun  from  the  earth. 
This  transit  could  only  be  observed  in  the  south- 
ern hemisphere,  and  it  was  in  order  to  observe  it 
that  Cook  made  his  first  voyage  of  exploration. 

There  was  a  double  suitability  in  the  motive 
of  Cook's  first  voyage.  The  work  of  his  life 
could  only  have  been  carried  out  owing  to  the 
improvement  in  nautical  instruments  which  had 
been  made  during  the  early  part  of  the  eighteenth 
century.  Hadley  had  invented  the  sextant,  bj 
which  the  sun's  elevation  could  be  taken  with 
much  more  ease  and  accuracy  than  with  the  old 
cross-staff,  the  very  rough  gnomon  which  the 
earlier  navigators  had  to  use.  Still  more  impor- 
tant for  scientific  geography  was  the  improvement 
that  had  taken  place  in  accurate  chronometry. 
To  find  the  latitude  of  a  place  is  not  so  difficult— 
the  length  of  the  day  at  different  times  of  the 
year  will  by  itself  be  almost  enough  to  determine 
this,  as  we  have  seen  in  the  very  earliest  history 
of  Greek  geography — but  to  determine  the  longi- 


146  THE  STORY  OF  GEOGRAPHICAL  DISCOVERY. 

tude  was  a  much  more  difficult  task,  which  in  the 
earlier  stages  could  only  be  performed  by  guess- 
work and  dead  reckoning. 

But  when  clocks  had  been  brought  to  such  a 
pitch  of  accuracy  that  they  would  not  lose  but  a 
few  seconds  or  minutes  during  the  whole  voyage, 
they  could  be  used  to  determine  the  difference  of 
local  time  between  any  spot  on  the  earth's  sur- 
face and  that  of  the  port  from  which  the  ship 
sailed,  or  from  some  fixed  place  where  the  clock 
could  be  timed.  The  English  government,  seeing 
the  importance  of  this,  proposed  the  very  large 
reward  of  ^10,000  for  the  invention  of  a  chronom- 
eter which  would  not  lose  more  than  a  stated 
number  of  minutes  during  a  year.  This  prize  was 
won  by  John  Harrison,  and  from  this  time  onward 
a  sea-captain  with  a  minimum  of  astronomical 
knowledge  was  enabled  to  know  his  longitude 
within  a  few  minutes.  Hadley's  sextant  and 
Harrison's  chronometer  were  the  necessary  im- 
plements to  enable  James  Cook  to  do  his  work, 
which  was  thus,  both  in  aim  and  method,  in  every 
way  English. 

James  Cook  was  a  practical  sailor,  who  had 
shown  considerable  intelligence  in  sounding  the 
St.  Lawrence  on  Wolfe's  expedition,  and  had  after- 
wards been  appointed  marine  surveyor  of  New- 
foundland. When  the  Royal  Society  determined 
to  send  out  an  expedition  to  observe  the  transit 
of  Venus,  according  to  Halley's  prediction,  they 
were  deterred  from  entrusting  the  expedition  to  a 
scientific  man  by  the  example  of  Halley  himself, 
who  had  failed  to  obtain  obedience  from  sailors  on 
being  entrusted  with  the  command.  Dalrymple, 
the  chief  hydrographer  of  the  Admiralty,  who  had 
chief  claims  to  the  command,  was  also  somewhat 


AUSTRALIA  AND   THE  SOUTH   SEAS.  147 

of  a  faddist,  and  Cook  was  selected  almost  as  a 
dernier  ressort.  The  choice  proved  an  excellent 
one.  He  selected  a  coasting  coaler  named  the 
Endeavour,  of  360  tons,  because  her  breadth  of 
beam  would  enable  her  to  carry  more  stores  and 
to  run  near  coasts.  Just  before  they  started. 
Captain  Wallis  returned  from  a  voyage  round  the 
world  upon  which  he  had  discovered  or  re-discov- 
ered Tahiti,  and  he  recommended  this  as  a  suit- 
able place  for  observing  the  transit. 

Cook  duly  arrived  there,  and  on  the  3rd  of 
June,  1769,  the  main  object  of  the  expedition  was 
fulfilled  by  a  successful  observation.  But  he 
then  proceeded  farther,  and  arrived  soon  at  a  land 
which  he  saw  reason  to  identify  with  the  Staaten 
Land  of  Tasman ;  but  on  coasting  along  this. 
Cook  found  that,  so  far  from  belonging  to  a  great 
southern  continent,  it  was  composed  of  two  islands, 
between  which  he  sailed,  giving  his  name  to  the 
strait  separating  them.  Leaving  New  Zealand  on 
the  31st  of  March,  1770,  on  the  20th  of  the  next 
month  he  came  across  another  land  to  the  west- 
ward, hitherto  unknown  to  mariners.  Entering 
an  inlet,  he  explored  the  neighbourhood  with  the 
aid  of  Mr.  Joseph  Banks,  the  naturalist  of  the  ex- 
pedition. He  found  so  many  plants  new  to  him 
that  the  bay  was  termed  Botany  Bay. 

He  then  coasted  northward,  and  nearly  lost 
his  ship  upon  the  great  reef  running  down  the 
eastern  coast;  but  by  keeping  within  it  he  man- 
aged to  reach  the  extreme  end  of  the  land  in  this 
direction,  and  proved  that  it  was  distinct  from 
New  Guinea.  In  other  words,  he  had  reached 
the  southern  point  of  the  strait  named  after  Tor- 
res. To  this  immense  line  of  coast  Cook  gave 
the  name  of  New  South  Wales,  from  some  resem- 


148  THE  STORY  OF  GEOGRAPHICAL  DISCOVERY. 

blance  that  he  saw  to  the  coast  about  Swansea. 
By  this  first  voyage  Cook  had  proved  that  neither 
New  Holland  nor  Staaten  Land  belonged  to  the 
great  Antarctic  continent,  which  remained  the  sole 
myth  bequeathed  by  the  ancients  which  had  not 
yet  been  definitely  removed  from  the  maps.  In 
his  second  voyage,  starting  in  1 7 7 2,  he  was  directed 
to  settle  finally  this  problem.  He  went  at  once 
to  the  Cape  of  Good  Hope,  and  from  there  started 
out  on  a  zigzag  journey  round  the  Southern  Pole, 
poking  the  nose  of  his  vessel  in  all  directions  as 
far  south  as  he  could  reach,  only  pulling  up  when 
he  touched  ice.  In  whatever  direction  he  ad- 
vanced he  failed  to  find  any  trace  of  extensive 
land  corresponding  to  the  supposed  Antarctic 
continent,  which  he  thus  definitely  proved  to  be 
non-existent.  He  spent  the  remainder  of  this 
voyage  in  re-discovering  various  sets  of  archipela- 
gos which  preceding  Spanish,  Dutch,  and  English 
navigators  had  touched,  but  had  never  accurately 
surveyed.  Later  on  Cook  made  a  run  across  the 
Pacific  from  New  Zealand  to  Cape  Horn  without 
discovering  any  extensive  land,  thus  clinching  the 
matter  after  three  years'  careful  inquiry.  It  is 
worthy  of  remark  that  during  that  long  time  he 
lost  but  four  out  of  118  men,  and  only  one  of 
them  by  sickness. 

Only  one  great  problem  to  maritime  geography 
still  remained  to  be  solved,  that  of  the  north-west 
passage,  which,  as  we  have  seen,  had  so  frequently 
been  tried  by  English  navigators,  working  from 
the  east  through  Hudson's  Bay.  In  1776  Cook 
was  deputed  by  George  III,  to  attempt  the  solu- 
tion of  this  problem  by  a  new  method.  He  was 
directed  to  endeavour  to  find  an  opening  on  the 
north-west  coast  of  America  which  would  lead  into 


AUSTRALIA   AND   THE   SOUTH   SEAS.  149 

Hudson's  Bay.  The  old  legend  of  Juan  de  Fu- 
ca's  great  bay  still  misled  geographers  as  to  this 
coast.  Cook  not  alone  settled  this  problem,  but, 
by  advancing  through  Bering  Strait  and  examin- 
ing both  sides  of  it,  determined  that  the  two  con- 
tinents of  Asia  and  America  approached  one  an- 
other as  near  as  thirty-six  miles.  On  his  return 
voyage  he  landed  at  Owhyee  (Hawaii),  where  he 
was  slain  in  1777,  and  his  ships  returned  to  Eng- 
land without  adding  anything  further  to  geo- 
graphical knowledge. 

Cook's  voyages  had  aroused  the  generous  emu- 
lation of  the  French,  who,  to  their  eternal  honour, 
had  given  directions  to  their  fleet  to  respect  his 
vessels  wherever  found,  though  France  was  at 
that  time  at  war  with  England.  In  1783  an  ex- 
pedition was  sent,  under  Francois  de  la  Perouse, 
to  complete  Cook's  work.  He  explored  the  north- 
east coast  of  Asia,  examined  the  island  of  Sagha- 
lien,  and  passed  through  the  strait  between  it  and 
Japan,  often  called  by  his  name.  In  Kamtschat- 
ka  La  Perouse  landed  Monsieur  Lesseps,  who  had 
accompanied  the  expedition  as  Russian  inter- 
preter, and  sent  home  by  him  his  journals  and 
surveys.  Lesseps  made  a  careful  examination  of 
Kamtschatka  himself,  and  succeeded  in  passing 
overland  thence  to  Paris,  being  the  first  European 
to  journey  completely  across  the  Old  World  from 
the  Pacific  to  the  Atlantic  Ocean.  La  Perouse 
then  proceeded  to  follow  Cook  by  examining  the 
coast  of  New  South  Wales,  and  to  his  surprise, 
when  entering  a  fine  harbour  in  the  middle  of  the 
coast,  found  there  English  ships  engaged  in  set- 
tling the  first  Australian  colony  in  1787.  After 
again  delivering  his  surveys  to  be  forwarded  by 
the  Englishmen,  he  started  to  survey  the  coast  ot 


150  THE  STORY  OF  GEOGRAPHICAL   DISCOVERY. 

New  Holland,  but  his  expedition  was  not  heard 
of  until  1826,  when  it  was  discovered  that  it  had 
been  wrecked  on  Vanikoro,  an  island  near  the 
Fijis. 

We  have  seen  that  Cook's  exploration  of  the 
eastern  coast  of  Australia  was  soon  followed  up 
by  a  settlement.  A  number  of  convicts  were  sent 
out  under  Captain  Philips  to  Botany  Bay,  and 
from  that  time  onward  English  explorers  grad- 
ually determined  with  accuracy  both  the  coast- 
line and  the  interior  of  the  huge  stretch  of  land 
known  to  us  as  Australia.  One  of  the  ships  that 
had  accompanied  Cook  on  his  second  voyage  had 
made  a  rough  survey  of  Van  Diemen's  Land,  and 
had  come  to  the  conclusion  that  it  joined  on  to 
the  mainland.  But  in  1797,  Bass,  a  surgeon  in 
the  navy,  coasted  down  from  Port  Jackson  to  the 
south  in  a  fine  whale  boat  with  a  crew  of  six 
men,  and  discovered  open  sea  running  between 
the  southernmost  point  and  Van  Diemen's  Land; 
this  is  still  known  as  Bass'  Strait.  A  companion 
of  his,  named  Flinders,  coasted,  in  1799,  along 
the  south  coast  from  Cape  Leeuwin  eastward,  and 
on  this  voyage  met  a  French  ship  at  Encounter 
Bay,  so  named  from  the  re?tcontre.  Proceeding 
farther,  he  discovered  Port  Philip ;  and  the  coast- 
line of  Australia  was  approximately  settled  after 
Captain  P.  P.  King  in  four  voyages,  between  181 7 
and  1822,  had  investigated  the  river  mouths. 

The  interior  now  remained  to  be  investigated. 
On  the  east  coast  this  was  rendered  difficult  by 
the  range  of  the  Blue  Mountains,  honeycombed 
throughout  with  huge  gullies,  which  led  investi- 
gators time  after  time  into  a  cul-de-sac;  but  in 
1813  Philip  Wentworth  managed  to  cross  them, 
and  found   a  fertile   plateau   to   the    westward. 


152  THE   STORY  OF  GEOGRAPHICAL   DISCOVERY. 

Next  year  Evans  discovered  the,  Lachlan  and 
Macquarie  rivers,  and  penetrated  farther  into  the 
Bathurst  plains.  In  1828-29  Captain  Sturt  in- 
creased the  knowledge  of  the  interior  by  tracing 
the  course  of  the  two  great  rivers  Darling  and 
Murray.  In  1848  the  German  explorer  Leich- 
hardt  lost  his  life  in  an  attempt  to  penetrate  the 
interior  northward;  but  in  i860  two  explorers, 
named  Burke  and  Wills,  managed  to  pass  from 
south  to  north  along  the  east  coast;  while  in  the 
four  years  1858  to  1862,  John  M'Dowall  Stuart 
performed  the  still  more  difficult  feat  of  crossing 
the  centre  of  the  continent  from  south  to  north, 
in  order  to  trace  a  course  for  the  telegraphic  line 
which  was  shortly  afterwards  erected.  By  this 
time  settlements  had  sprung  up  throughout  the 
whole  coast  of  Eastern  Australia,  and  there  only 
remained  the  western  desert  to  be  explored.  This 
was  effected  in  two  journeys  of  John  Forrest, 
between  1868  and  1874,  who  penetrated  from 
Western  Australia  as  far  as  the  central  tele- 
graphic line;  while,  between  1872  and  1876, 
Ernest  Giles  performed  the  same  feat  to  the 
north.  Quite  recently,  in  1897,  these  two  routes 
were  jomed  by  the  journey  of  the  Honourable 
Daniel  Carnegie  from  the  Coolgardie  gold  fields 
in  the  south  to  those  of  Kimberley  in  the  north. 
These  explorations,  while  adding  to  our  knowl- 
edge of  the  interior  of  Australia,  have  only  con- 
firmed the  impression  that  it  was  not  worth 
knowing. 

[Authorities  :  Rev.  G.  Grimm,  Discovery  and  Exploration 
of  Australia  (Melbourne,  1888) ;  A.  F.  Calvert,  Discovery  of 
Australia,  1893  »  Exploration  of  Australia,  1895  ;  Early  Voy- 
ages to  Australia,  Hakluyt  Society.] 


EXPLORATION   AND   BARTITION  OF  AFRICA.     153 


CHAPTER  XI. 

EXPLORATION  AND  PARTITION    OF    AFRICA  : 
PARK LIVINGSTONE STANLEY. 

We  have  seen  how  the  Portuguese  had  slowly 
coasted  along  the  shore  of  Africa  during  the 
fifteenth  century  in  search  of  a  way  to  the 
Indies.  By  the  end  of  the  century  mariners* 
portulanos  gave  a  rude  yet  effective  account 
of  the  littoral  of  Africa,  both  on  the  west  and 
the  eastern  side.  Not  alone  did  they  explore 
the  coast,  but  they  settled  upon  it.  At  Amina 
on  the  Guinea  coast,  at  Loando  near  the  Congo, 
and  at  Benguela  on  the  western  coast,  they 
established  stations  whence  to  despatch  the 
gold  and  ivory,  and,  above  all,  the  slaves,  which 
turned  out  to  be  the  chief  African  products  of 
use  to  Europeans.  On  the  east  coast  they 
settled  at  Sofala,  a  port  of  Mozambique ;  and  in 
Zanzibar  they  possessed  no  less  than  three  ports, 
those  first  visited  by  Vasco  da  Gama  and  after- 
wards celebrated  by  Milton  in  the  sonorous  line 
contained  in  the  gorgeous  geographical  excursus 
in  the  Eleventh  Book — 

"  Mombaza  and  Quiloa  and  Melind." 

— Paradise  Lost^  xi.  339. 

It  is  probable  that,  besides  settling  on  the 
coast,  the  Portuguese  from  time  to  time  made  ex- 
ploration into  the  interior.  At  any  rate,  in  some 
maps  of  the  sixteenth  and  seventeenth  centuries 
there  is  shown  a  remarkable  knowledge  of  the 
course  of  the  Nile.  We  get  it  terminated  in  three 
large  lakes,  which  can  be  scarcely  other  than  the 


154  THE  STORY  OF  GEOGRAPHICAL  DISCOVERY. 

Victoria  and  Albert  Nyanza,  and  Tanganyika. 
The  Mountains  of  the  Moon  also  figure  promi- 
nently, and  it  was  only  almost  the  other  day  that 
Mr.  Stanley  re-discovered  them.  It  is  difficult, 
however,  to  determine  how  far  these  entries  on 
the  Portuguese  maps  were  due  to  actual  knowl- 
edge or  report,  or  to  the  traditions  of  a  still  earlier 
knowledge  of  these  lakes  and  mountains;  for  in 
the  maps  accompanying  the  early  editions  of 
Ptolemy  we  likewise  obtain  the  same  information, 
which  is  repeated  by  the  Arabic  geographers,  ob- 
viously from  Ptolemy,  and  not  from  actual  obser- 
vation. When  the  two  great  French  carto- 
graphers Delisle  and  D'Anville  determined  not  to 
insert  anything  on  their  maps  for  which  they  had 
not  some  evidence,  these  lakes  and  mountains 
disappeared,  and  thus  it  has  come  about  that 
maps  of  the  seventeenth  century  often  appear  to 
display  more  knowledge  of  the  interior  of  Africa 
than  those  of  the  beginning  of  the  nineteenth,  at 
least  with  regard  to  the  sources  of  the  Nile. 

African  exploration  of  the  interior  begins  with 
the  search  for  the  sources  of  the  Nile,  and  has 
been  mainly  concluded  by  the  determination  of 
the  course  of  the  three  other  great  rivers,  the 
Niger,  the  Zambesi,  and  the  Congo.  It  is  re- 
markable that  all  four  rivers  have  had  their 
course  determined  by  persons  of  British  nation- 
ality. .The  names  of  Bruce  and  Grant  will  always 
be  associated  with  the  Nile,  that  of  Mungo  Park 
with  the  Niger,  Dr.  Livingstone  with  the  Zam- 
besi, and  Mr.  Stanley  with  the  Congo.  It  is  not 
inappropriate  that,  except  in  the  case  of  the 
Congo,  England  should  control  the  course  of  the 
rivers  which  her  sons  first  made  accessible  to 
civilisation. 


EXPLORATION   AND   PARTITION   OF  AFRICA.     155 

We  have  seen  that  there  was  an  ancient  tradi- 
tion reported  by  Herodotus,  that  the  Nile  trended 
off  to  the  west  and  became  there  the  river  Niger  ; 
while  still  earlier  there  was  an  impression  that 
part  of  it  at  any  rate  wandered  eastward,  and 
some  way  joined  on  to  the   same  source  as  the 


Dapper's  map  of  Africa,  1676. 

Tigris  and  Euphrates — at  least  that  seems  to  be 
the  suggestion  in  the  biblical  account  of  Paradise. 
Whatever  the  reason,  the  greatest  uncertainty 
existed  as  to  the  actual  course  of  the  river,  and  to 
discover  the  source  of  the  Nile  was  for  many 
centuries  the  standing  expression  for  performing 


156  THE  STORY  OF  GEOGRAPHICAL   DISCOVERY. 

the  impossible.  In  1768,  James  Bruce,  a  Scottish 
gentleman  of  position,  set  out  with  the  determi- 
nation of  solving  this  mystery — a  determination 
which  he  had  made  in  early  youth,  and  carried 
out  with  characteristic  pertinacity.  He  had 
acquired  a  certain  amount  of  knowledge  of 
Arabic  and  acquaintance  with  African  customs  as 
Consul  at  Algiers.  He  went  up  the  Nile  as  far  as 
Farsunt,  and  then  crossed  the  desert  to  the  Red 
Sea,  went  over  to  Jedda,  from  which  he  took  ship 
for  Massowah,  and  began  his  search  for  the 
sources  of  the  Nile  in  Abyssinia.  He  visited  the 
ruins  of  Axum,  the  former  capital,  and  in  the 
neighbourhood  of  that  place  saw  the  incident 
with  which  his  travels  have  always  been  associ- 
ated, in  which  a  couple  of  rump-steaks  were  ex- 
tracted from  a  cow  while  alive,  the  wound  sewn 
up,  and  the  animal  driven  on  farther. 

Here,  guided  by  some  Gallas,  he  worked  his 
way  up  the  Blue  Nile  to  the  three  fountains, 
which  he  declared  to  be  the  true  sources  of  the 
Nile,  and  identified  with  the  three  mysterious 
lakes  in  the  old  maps.  From  there  he  worked 
his  way  down  the  Nile,  reaching  Cairo  in  1773. 
Of  course  what  he  had  discovered  was  merely  the 
source  of  the  Blue  Nile,  and  even  this  had  been 
previously  visited  by  a  Portuguese  traveller 
named  Payz.  But  the  interesting  adventures 
which  he  experienced,  and  the  interesting  style 
in  which  he  told  them,  aroused  universal  atten- 
tion, which  was  perhaps  increased  by  the  fact 
that  his  journey  was  undertaken  purely  from  love 
of  adventure  and  discovery.  The  year  1768  is 
distinguished  by  the  two  journeys  of  James  Cook 
and  James  Bruce,  both  of  them  expressly  for  pur- 
poses of  geographical  discovery,  and  thus  inau- 


EXPLORATION   AND   PARTITION   OF  AFRICA.     157 

^urating  the  era  of  what  may  be  called  scientific 
exploration.  Ten  years  later  an  association  was 
formed  named  the  African  Association,  expressly 
intended  to  explore  the  unknown  parts  of  Africa, 
and  the  first  geographical  society  called  into 
existence.  In  1795  Mungo  Park  was  despatched 
by  the  Association  to  the  west  coast.  He  started 
from  the  Gambia,  and  after  many  adventures,  in 
which  he  was  captured  by  the  Moors,  arrived  at 
the  banks  of  the  Niger,  which  he  traced  along  its 
middle  course,  but  he  failed  to  reach  as  far  as 
Timbuctoo.  He  made  a  second  attempt  in  1805, 
hoping  by  sailing  down  the  Niger  to  prove  its 
identity  with  the  river  known  at  its  mouth  as  the 
Congo  ;  but  he  was  forced  to  return,  and  died  at 
Boussa,  without  having  determined  the  remaining 
course  of  the  Niger. 

Attention  was  thus  drawn  to  the  existence  of 
the  mysterious  city  of  Timbuctoo,  of  which 
Mungo  Park  had  brought  back  curious  rumors 
on  his  return  from  his  first  journey.  This  was 
visited  in  181 1  by  a  British  seaman  named  Adams, 
who  had  been  wrecked  on  the  Moorish  coast,  and 
taken  as  a  slave  by  the  Moors  across  to  Tim- 
buctoo. He  was  ultimately  ransomed  by  the 
British  consul  at  Mogador,  and  his  account  re- 
vived interest  in  West  African  exploration. 
Attempts  were  made  to  penetrate  the  secret  of 
the  Niger,  both  from  Senegambia  and  from  the 
Congo,  but  both  were  failures,  and  a  fresh  method 
was  adopted,  possibly  owing  to  Adams'  experi- 
ence in  the  attempt  to  reach  the  Niger  by  the  car- 
avan routes  across  the  Sahara.  In  1822  Major 
Denham  and  Lieutenant  Clapperton  left  Murzouk, 
the  capital  of  Fezzan,  and  made  their  way  to 
Lake   Chad   and  thence   to    Bornu.     Clapperton, 


158  THE   STORY   OF  GEOGRAPHICAL   DISCOVERY. 

later  on,  again  visited  the  Niger  from  Benin. 
Altogether  these  two  travellers  added  some  two 
thousand  miles  of  route  to  our  knowledge  of 
West  Africa.  In  1826-27  Timbuctoo  was  at  last 
visited  by  two  Europeans — Major  Lamg  in  the 
former  year,  who  was  murdered  there ;  and  a 
young  Frenchman,  Rene  Caillie,  in  the  latter. 
His  account  aroused  great  interest,  and  Tenny- 
son began  his  poetic  career  by  a  prize-poem  on 
the  subject  of  the  mysterious  African  capital. 

It  was  not  till  1850  that  the  work  of  Denham 
and  Clapperton  was  again  taken  up  by  Barth, 
who  for  five  years  explored  the  whole  country  to 
the  west  of  Lake  Chad,  visiting  Timbuctoo,  and 
connecting  the  lines  of  route  of  Clapperton  and 
Cailli^.  What  he  did  for  the  west  of  Lake  Chad 
was  accomplished  by  Nachtigall  east  of  that  lake 
in  Darfur  and  Wadai,  in  a  journey  which  likewise 
took  five  years  (1869-74).  Of  recent  years  polit- 
ical interests  have  caused  numerous  expeditions, 
especially  by  the  French  to  connect  their  posses- 
sions in  Algeria  and  Tunis  with  those  on  the  Gold 
Coast  and  on  the  Senegal. 

The  next  stage  in  African  exploration  is  con- 
nected with  the  name  of  the  man  to  whom  can  be 
traced  practically  the  whole  of  recent  discoveries. 
By  his  tact  in  dealing  with  the  natives,  by  his 
calm  pertinacity  and  dauntless  courage,  David 
Livingstone  succeeded  in  opening  up  the  entirely 
unknown  districts  of  Central  Africa.  Starting 
from  the  Cape  in  1849,  he  worked  his  way  north- 
ward to  the  Zambesi,  and  then  to  Lake  Dilolo, 
and  after  five  years'  wandering  reached  the  west- 
ern coast  of  Africa  at  Loanda.  Then  retracing 
his  steps  to  the  Zambesi  again,  he  followed  its 
course  to  its  mouth  on  the  east  coast,  thus  for 


EXPLORATION  AND   PARTITION   OF  AFRICA.     159 

the  first  time  crossing  Africa  from  west  to  east. 
In  a  second  journey,  on  which  he  started  in  1858, 
he  commenced  tracing  the  course  of  the  river 
Shire,  the  most  important  affluent  of  the  Zambesi, 
and  in  so  doing  arrived  on  the  shores  of  Lake 
Nyassa  in  September,  1859. 

Meanwhile  two  explorers.  Captain  (afterwards 
Sir  Richard)  Burton  and  Captain  Speke,  had 
started  from  Zanzibar  to  discover  a  lake  of  which 
rumours  had  for  a  long  time  been  heard,  and  in 
the  following  year  succeeded  in  reaching  Lake 
Tanganyika.  On  their  return  Speke  parted  from 
Burton  and  took  a  route  more  to  the  north,  from 
which  he  saw  another  great  lake,  which  afterwards 
turned  out  to  be  the  Victoria  Nyanza.  In  i860, 
with  another  companion  (Captain  Grant),  Speke 
returned  to  the  Victoria  Nyanza,  and  traced  out 
its  course.  On  the  north  of  it  they  found  a  great 
river  trending  to  the  north,  which  they  followed 
as  far  as  Gondokoro.  Here  they  found  Mr. 
(afterwards  Sir  Samuel)  Baker,  who  had  travelled 
up  the  White  Nile  to  investigate  its  source,  which 
they  thus  proved  to  be  in  the  Lake  Victoria 
Nyanza.  Baker  continued  his  search,  and  suc- 
ceeded in  showing  that  another  source  of  the  Nile 
was  to  be  found  in  a  smaller  lake  to  the  west, 
which  he  named  Albert  Nyanza.  Thus  these 
three  Englishmen  had  combined  to  solve  the  long- 
sought  problem  of  the  sources  of  the  Nile. 

The  discoveries  of  the  Englishmen  were  soon 
followed  up  by  important  political  action  by  the 
Khedive  of  Egypt,  Ismail  Pasha,  who  claimed  the 
whole  course  of  the  Nile  as  part  of  his  dominions, 
and  established  stations  all  along  it.  This,  of 
course,  led  to  full  information  about  the  basin  of 
the   Nile   being  acquired   for   geographical   pur- 


i6o  THE  STORY  OF  GEOGRAPHICAL  DISCOVERY. 

poses,  and,  under  Sir  Samuel  Baker  and  Colonel 
Gordon,  civilisation  was  for  a  time  in  possession 
of  the  Nile  from  its  source  to  its  mouth. 

Meanwhile  Livingstone  had  set  himself  to 
solve  the  problem  of  the  great  Lake  Tanganyika, 
and  started  on  his  last  journey  in  1865  for  that 
purpose.  He  discovered  Lakes  Moero  and  Bang- 
weolo,  and  the  river  Nyangoue,  also  known  as 
Lualaba.  So  much  interest  had  been  aroused 
by  Livingstone's  previous  exploits  of  discovery, 
that  when  nothing  had  been  heard  of  him  for 
some  time,  in  1869  Mr.  H.  M.  Stanley  was  sent 
by  the  proprietors  of  the  New  York  Her-ald^  for 
whom  he  had  previously  acted  as  war-correspond- 
ent, to  find  Livingstone.  He  started  in  1871 
from  Zanzibar,  and  before  the  end  of  the  year 
had  come  across  a  white  man  in  the  heart  of  the 
Dark  Continent,  and  greeted  him  with  the  historic 
query,  "Dr.  Livingstone,  I  presume?"  Two 
years  later  Livingstone  died,  a  martyr  to  geo- 
graphical and  missionary  enthusiasm.  His  work 
was  taken  up  by  Mr.  Stanley,  who  in  1876  was 
again  despatched  to  continue  Livingstone's  work, 
and  succeeded  in  crossing  the  Dark  Continent 
from  Zanzibar  to  the  mouth  of  the  Congo,  the 
whole  course  of  which  he  traced,  proving  that  the 
Lualaba  or  Nyangoue  were  merely  different 
names  or  affluents  of  this  mighty  stream.  Stan- 
ley's remarkable  journey  completed  the  rough 
outline  of  African  geography  by  defining  the 
course  of  the  fourth  great  river  of  the  continent. 

But  Stanley's  journey  across  the  Dark  Con- 
tinent was  destined  to  be  the  starting-point  of  an 
entirely  new  development  of  the  African  problem. 
Even  while  Stanley  was  on  his  journey  a  confer- 
ence had   been  assembled  at  Brussels   by   King 


20  lO 


20  30  4.0 


20  10  0  10  20  30 


50  60 


Exploration  and  j)ait:ti()n  of  Africa. 


l62  THE  STORY  OF  GEOGRAPHICAL  DISCOVERY. 

Leopold,  in  which  an  international  committee  was 
formed  representing  all  the  nations  of  Europe, 
nominally  for  the  exploration  of  Africa,  but,  as  it 
turned  out,  really  for  its  partition  among  the 
European  powers.  Within  fifteen  years  of  the 
assembly  of  the  conference  the  interior  of  Africa 
had  been  parcelled  out,  mainly  among  the  five 
powers,  England,  France,  Germany,  Portugal,  and 
Belgium.  As  in  the  case  of  America,  geographical 
discovery  was  soon  followed  by  political  division. 
The  process  began  by  the  carving  out  of  a 
state  covering  the  whole  of  the  newly-discovered 
Congo,  nominally  independent,  but  really  forming 
a  colony  of  Belgium,  King  Leopold  supplying  the 
funds  for  that  purpose.  Mr.  Stanley  was  de- 
spatched in  1879  to  establish  stations  along  the 
lower  course  of  the  river,  but,  to  his  surprise,  he 
found  that  he  had  been  anticipated  by  M.  de 
Brazza,  a  Portuguese  in  the  service  of  France, 
who  had  been  despatched  on  a  secret  mission  to 
anticipate  the  King  of  the  Belgians  in  seizing  the 
important  river  mouth.  At  the  same  time  Portu- 
gal put  in  claims  for  possession  of  the  Congo 
mouth,  and  it  became  clear  that  international  rival- 
ries would  interfere  with  the  foundation  of  any 
state  on  the  Congo  unless  some  definite  interna- 
tional arrangement  was  arrived  at.  Almost  about 
the  same  time,  in  1880,  Germany  began  to  enter 
the  field  as  a  colonising  power  in  Africa.  In 
South-West  Africa  and  in  the  Cameroons,  and 
somewhat  later  in  Zanzibar,  claims  were  set  up 
on  behalf  of  Germany  by  Prince  Bismarck  which 
conflicted  with  English  interests  in  those  districts, 
and  under  his  presidency  a  Congress  was  held  at 
Berlin  in  the  winter  of  1884-85  to  determine  the 
rules  of  the  claims  by  which  Africa  could  be  par- 


EXPLORATION  AND   PARTITION   OF  AFRICA.     163 

titioned.  The  old  historic  claims  of  Portugal  to 
the  coast  of  Africa,  on  which  she  had  established 
stations  both  on  the  west  and  eastern  side,  were 
swept  away  by  the  principle  that  only  effective 
occupation  could  furnish  a  claim  of  sovereignty. 
This  great  principle  will  rule  henceforth  the  whole 
course  of  African  history;  in  other  words,  the 
good  old  Border  rule — 

"  That  they  should  take  who  have  the  power, 
And  they  should  keep  who  can." 

Almost  immediately  after  the  sitting  of  the 
Berlin  Congress,  and  indeed  during  it,  arrange- 
ments were  come  to  by  which  the  respective  claims 
of  England  and  Germany  in  South-West  Africa 
were  definitely  determined.  Almost  immediately 
afterwards  a  similar  process  had  to  be  gone 
through  in  order  to  determine  the  limits  of  the 
respective  "  spheres  of  influence,"  as  they  began 
to  be  called,  of  Germany  and  England  in  East 
Africa.  A  Chartered  Company,  called  the  British 
East  Africa  Association,  was  to  administer  the 
land  north  of  Victoria  Nyanza  bounded  on  the 
west  by  the  Congo  Free  State,  while  to  the  north 
it  extended  till  it  touched  the  revolted  provinces 
of  Egypt,  of  which  we  shall  soon  speak.  In  South 
Africa  a  similar  Chartered  Company,  under  the 
influence  of  Mr.  Cecil  Rhodes,  practically  con- 
trolled the  whole  country  from  Cape  Colony  up 
to  German  East  Africa  and  the  Congo  Free  State. 

The  winter  of  1890-91  was  especially  produc- 
tive of  agreements  of  demarcation.  After  a  con- 
siderable amount  of  friction  owing  to  the  en- 
croachments of  Major  Serpa  Pinto,  the  limits  of 
Portuguese  Angola  on  the  west  coast  were  then 
determined,  being  bounded  on  the  east  by  the 


1 64  THE   STORY   OF  GEOGRAPHICAL  DISCOVERY. 

Congo  Free  State  and  British  Central  Africa  ;  and 
at  the  same  time  Portuguese  East  Africa  was  set- 
tled in  its  relation  both  to  British  Central  Africa 
on  the  west  and  German  East  Africa  on  the  north. 
Meanwhile  Italy  had  put  in  its  caims  for  a  share 
in  the  spoil,  and  the  eastern  horn  of  Africa,  to- 
gether with  Abyssinia,  fell  to  its  share,  though  it 
soon  had  to  drop  it,  owing  to  the  unexpected 
vitality  shown  by  the  Abyssinians.  In  the  same 
year  (1890)  agreements  between  Germany  and 
England  settled  the  line  of  demarcation  between 
the  Cameroons  and  Togoland,  with  the  adjoining 
British  territories;  while  in  August  of  the  same 
year  an  attempt  was  made  to  limit  the  abnormal 
pretensions  of  the  French  along  the  Niger,  and  as 
far  as  Lake  Chad.  Here  the  British  interests 
were  represented  by  another  Chartered  Company, 
the  Royal  Niger  Company.  Unfortunately  the 
delimitation  was  not  very  definite,  not  being  by 
river  courses  or  meridians  as  in  other  cases,  but 
merely  by  territories  ruled  over  by  native  chiefs, 
whose  boundaries  were  not  then  particularly  dis- 
tinct. This  has  led  to  considerable  friction,  last- 
ing even  up  to  the  present  day ;  and  it  is  only 
with  reference  to  the  demarcation  between  Eng- 
land and  France  in  Africa  that  any  doubt  still 
remains  with  regard  to  the  western  and  central 
portions  of  the  continent. 

Towards  the  north-east  the  problem  of  delim- 
itation had  been  complicated  by  political  events, 
which  ultimately  led  to  another  great  exploring 
expedition  by  Mr.  Stanley.  The  extension  of 
Egypt  into  the  Equatorial  Provinces  under  Ismail 
Pasha,  due  in  large  measure  to  the  geographical 
discoveries  of  Grant,  Speke,  and  Baker,  led  to  an 
enormous  accumulation  of  debt,  which  caused  the 


EXPLORATION  AND   PARTITION  OF  AFRICA.     165 

country  to  become  bankrupt,  Ismail  Pasha  to  be 
deposed,  and  Egypt  to  be  administered  jointly  by 
France  and  England  on  behalf  of  the  European 
bondholders.  This  caused  much  dissatisfaction 
on  the  part  of  the  Egyptian  officials  and  army 
officers,  who  were  displaced  by  French  and  Eng- 
lish officials;  and  a  rebellion  broke  out  under 
Arabi  Pasha.  This  led  to  the  armed  intervention 
of  England,  France  having  refused  to  co-operate, 
and  Egypt  was  occupied  by  British  troops.  The 
Soudan  and  Equatorial  Provinces  had  independ- 
ently revolted  under  Mohammedan  fanaticism, 
and  it  was  determined  to  relinquish  those  Egyp- 
tian possessions,  which  had  originally  led  to  bank- 
ruptcy. General  Gordon  was  despatched  to  relieve 
the  various  Egyptian  garrisons  in  the  south,  but 
being  without  support,  ultimately  failed,  and  was 
killed  in  1885.  One  of  Gordon's  lieutenants,  a 
German  named  Schnitzler,  who  appears  to  have 
adopted  Mohammedanism,  and  was  known  as 
Emin  Pasha,  was  thus  isolated  in  the  midst  of 
Africa,  near  the  Albert  Nyanza,  and  Mr.  Stanley 
was  commissioned  to  attempt  his  rescue  in  1887. 
He  started  to  march  through  the  Congo  State, 
and  succeeded  in  traversing  a  huge  tract  of  forest 
country  inhabited  by  diminutive  savages,  who 
probably  represented  the  Pigmies  of  the  ancients. 
He  succeeded  in  reaching  Emin  Pasha,  and  after 
much  persuasion  induced  him  to  accompany  him 
to  Zanzibar,  only,  however,  to  return  as  a  German 
agent  to  the  Albert  Nyanza.  Mr.  Stanley's  jour- 
ney on  this  occasion  was  not  without  its  political 
aspects,  since  he  made  arrangements  during  the 
eastern  part  of  his  journey  for  securing  British  in- 
fluence for  the  lands  afterwards  handed  over  to 
the  British  East  Africa  Company. 


1 66  THE  STORY  OF  GEOGRAPHICAL  DISCOVERY. 

All  these  political  delimitations  were  naturally 
accompanied  by  explorations,  partly  scientific, 
but  mainly  political.  Major  Serpa  Pinto  twice 
crossed  Africa  in  an  attempt  to  connect  the  Por- 
tuguese settlements  on  the  two  coasts.  Similarly, 
Lieutenant  Wissmann  also  crossed  Africa  twice, 
between  1881  and  1887,  in  the  interests  of  the 
Congo  State,  though  he  ultimately  became  an 
official  of  his  native  country,  Germany.  Captain 
Lugard  had  investigated  the  region  between  the 
three  Lakes  Nyanza,  and  secured  it  for  Great 
Britain.  In  South  Africa  British  claims  were 
successfully  and  successively  advanced  to  Bech- 
uana-land,  Mashona-land,  and  Matabele-land,  and, 
under  the  leadership  of  Mr.  Cecil  Rhodes,  a  rail- 
way and  telegraph  were  rapidly  pushed  forward 
towards  the  north.  Owing  to  the  enterprise  of 
Mr.  (now  Sir  H.  H.)  Johnstone,  the  British  pos- 
sessions were  in  1891  pushed  up  as  far  as  Nyassa- 
land.  By  that  date,  as  we  have  seen,  various 
treaties  with  Germany  and  Portugal  had  definitely 
fixed  the  contour  lines  of  the  different  possessions 
of  the  three  countries  in  South  Africa.  By  1891 
the  interior  of  Africa,  which  had  up  to  1880  been 
practically  a  blank,  could  be  mapped  out  almost 
with  as  much  accuracy  as,  at  any  rate,  South 
America.     Europe  had  taken  possession  of  Africa. 

One  of  the  chief  results  of  this,  and  formerly 
one  of  its  main  motives,  was  the  abolition  of  the 
slave  trade.  North  Africa  has  been  Mohammedan 
since  the  eighth  century,  and  Islam  has  always 
recognised  slavery,  consequently  the  Arabs  of  the 
north  have  continued  to  make  raids  upon  the 
negroes  of  Central  Africa,  to  supply  the  Moham- 
medan countries  of  West  Asia  and  North  Africa  - 
with  slaves,    The  Mahdist  rebellion  was  in  parJ 


EXPLORATION  AND  PARTITION  OF  AFRICA.     167 

at  least  a  reaction  against  the  abolition  of  slavery 
by  Egypt,  and  the  interest  of  the  next  few  years 
will  consist  in  the  last  stand  of  the  slave  mer- 
chant in  the  Soudan,  in  Darfur,  and  in  Wadai, 
east  of  Lake  Chad,  where  the  only  powerful 
independent  Mohammedan  Sultanate  still  exists. 
England  is  closely  pressing  upon  the  revolted 
provinces,  along  the  upper  course  of  the  Nile; 
while  France  is  attempting,  by  expeditions  from 
the  French  Congo  and  through  Abyssinia,  to  take 
possession  of  the  Upper  Nile  before  England 
conquers  it.  The  race  for  the  Upper  Nile  is  at 
present  one  of  the  sources  of  danger  of  European 
war. 

While  exploration  and  conquest  have  either 
gone  hand  in  hand,  or  succeeded  one  another 
very  closely,  there  has  been  a  third  motive  that 
has  often  led  to  interesting  discoveries,  to  be  fol- 
lowed by  annexation.  The  mighty  hunters  of 
Africa  have  often  brought  back,  not  alone  ivory 
and  skins,  but  also  interesting  information  of  the 
interior.  The  gorgeous  narratives  of  Gordon 
Cumming  in  the  "  fifties  "  were  one  of  the  causes 
which  led  to  an  interest  in  African  exploration. 
Many  a  lad  has  had  his  imagination  fired  and  his 
career  determined  by  the  exploits  of  Gordon 
Cumming,  which  are  now,  however,  almost  for- 
gotten. Mr,  F.  C.  Selous  has  in  our  time  sur- 
passed even  Gordon  Cumming's  exploits,  and  has 
besides  done  excellent  work  as  guide  for  the  suc- 
cessive expeditions  into  South  Africa. 

Thus,  practically  within  our  own  time,  the 
interior  of  Africa,  where  once  geographers,  as  the 
poet  Butler  puts  it,  "  placed  elephants  instead  of 
towns,"  has  become  known,  in  its  main  outlines, 
t>y  successive  series  pf  intrepid  explorers,  whg 


1 68  THE  STORY  OF  GEOGRAPHICAL   DISCOVERY. 

have  often  had  to  be  warriors  as  well  as  scientific 
men.  Whatever  the  motives  that  have  led  the 
white  man  mto  the  centre  of  the  Dark  Continent 
— love  of  adventure,  scientific  curiosity,  big  game, 
or  patriotism — the  result  has  been  that  the  con- 
tinent has  become  known  instead  of  merely  its 
coast-line.  On  the  whole,  English  exploration  has 
been  the  main  means  by  which  our  knowledge  of 
the  interior  of  Africa  has  been  obtained,  and  Eng- 
land has  been  richly  rewarded  by  coming  into  pos- 
session of  the  most  promising  parts  of  the  conti- 
nent— the  Nile  valley  and  temperate  South  Africa. 
But  France  has  also  gained  a  huge  extent  of 
country  covering  almost  the  whole  of  North-West 
Africa.  While  much  of  this  is  merely  desert, 
there  are  caravan  routes  which  tap  the  basin  of 
the  Niger  and  conduct  its  products  to  Algeria, 
conquered  by  France  early  in  the  century,  and  to 
Tunis,  more  recently  appropriated.  The  West 
African  provinces  of  France  have,  at  any  rate, 
this  advantage,  that  they  are  nearer  to  the 
mother-country  than  any  other  colony  of  a 
European  power ;  and  the  result  may  be  that 
African  soldiers  may  one  of  these  days  fight  for 
France  on  European  soil,  just  as  the  Indian 
soldiers  were  imported  to  Cyprus  by  Lord  Bea- 
consfield  in  1876.  Meanwhile,  the  result  of  all 
this  international  ambition  has  been  that  Africa 
in  its  entirety  is  now  known  and  accessible  to 
European  civilisation. 

[Authorities  :  Kiepert,  Beitrage  zur  EntdeckungsgescMchte 
Affikas,  1873  ;  Brown,  The  Story  of  Africa,  4  vols.,  1894  ; 
SgoU  Kdtie,  The  Partition  of  Africa,  1896.] 


THE  POLES.  169 


CHAPTER   XII. 

THE     POLES — FRANKLIN — ROSS — NORDENSKIOLD — 
NANSEN — PEARY — AMUNDSEN — SCOTT. 

Almost  the  whole  of  the  explorations  which 
we  have  hitherto  described  or  referred  to  had  for 
their  motive  some  practical  purpose,  whether  to 
reach  the  Spice  Islands  or  to  hunt  big  game. 
Even  the  excursions  of  Davis,  Frobisher,  Hudson, 
and  Baffin  in  pursuit  of  the  north-west  passage, 
and  of  BarenLz  and  Chancellor  in  search  of  the 
north-east  passage,  were  really  in  pursuit  of  mer- 
cantile ends.  It  IS  only  with  James  Cook  that 
the  era  of  purely  scientific  exploration  begins, 
though  it  is  fair  to  qualify  this  statement  by 
observing  that  the  Russian  expedition  under 
Bering,  already  referred  to,  was  ordered  by  Peter 
the  Great  to  determine  a  strictly  geographical 
problem,  though  doubtless  it  had  its  bearings  on 
Russian  ambitions.  Bering  and  Cook  between 
them,  as  we  have  seen,  settled  the  problem  of  the 
relations  existing  between  the  ends  of  the  two 
continents,  Asia  and  America,  but  what  remained 
still  to  the  north  of  terra  firma  within  the  Arctic 
Circle  ?  That  was  the  problem  which  the  nine- 
teenth century  set  itself  to  solve,  and  very  nearly 
succeeded  in  the  solution.  For  the  Arctic  Circle 
we  now  possess  maps  that  only  show  blanks  over 
a  few  thousand  square  miles. 

This  knowledge  has  been  gained  by  slow 
degrees,  and  by  the  exercise  of  the  most  heroic 
courage  and  endurance.  It  is  a  heroic  tale,  in 
which  love  of  adventure  and  zeal  for  science  have 
combated  with  and  conquered  the  horrors  of  an 


170  THE  STORY  OF  GEOGRAPHICAL  DISCOVERY. 

Arctic  winter,  the  six  months'  darkness  in  silence 
and  desolation,  the  excessive  cold,  and  the 
dangers  of  starvation.  It  is  impossible  here  to 
go  into  any  of  the  details  which  rendered  the  tale 
of  Arctic  voyages  one  of  the  most  stirring  in 
human  history.  All  we  are  concerned  with  here 
is  the  amount  of  new  knowledge  brought  back 
by  successive  expeditions  within  the  Arctic  Circle. 
This  region  of  the  earth's  surface  is  distin- 
guished by  a  number  of  large  islands  in  the  east- 
ern hemisphere,  most  of  which  were  discovered  at 
an  early  date.  We  have  seen  how  the  Norsemen 
landed  and  settled  upon  Greenland  as  early  as 
the  tenth  century.  Burrough  sighted  Nova 
Zembla  in  1556,  in  one  of  the  voyages  in  search 
of  the  north-east  passage,  though  the  very  name 
(Russian  for  Newfoundland)  implies  that  it  had 
previously  been  sighted  and  named  by  Russian 
seamen.  Barentz  is  credited  with  having  sighted 
Spitzbergen.  The  numerous  islands  to  the  north 
of  Siberia  became  known  through  the  Russian 
investigations. of  Discheneff,  Bering,  and  their  fol- 
lowers; while  the  intricate  network  of  islands 
to  the  north  of  the  continent  of  North  America 
had  been  slowly  worked  out  during  the  search  for 
the  north-west  passage.  It  was  indeed  in  pursuit 
of  this  will-of-the-wisp  that  most  of  the  discov- 
eries in  the  Arctic  Circle  were  made,  and  a  gen- 
eral impetus  given  to  Arctic  exploration. 

It  is  with  a  renewed  attempt  after  this  search 
that  the  modern  history  of  Arctic  exploration 
begins.  In  1818  two  expeditions  were  sent  under 
the  influence  of  Sir  Joseph  Banks  to  search  the 
north-west  passage,  and  to  attempt  to  reach  the 
Pole.  The  former  was  the  objective  of  John  Ross 
in  the  Isabella  and  W.  E.  P^rry  in  the  Alexander 


THE  POLES.  171 

while  in  the  Polar  exploration  John  Franklin 
sailed  in  the  Trent.  Both  expeditions  were  un- 
successful, though  Ross  and  Parry  confirmed 
Baffin's  discoveries.  Notwithstanding  this,  two 
expeditions  were  sent  two  years  later  to  attempt 
the  north-west  passage,  one  by  land  under 
Franklin,  and  the  other  by  sea  under  Parry. 
Parry  managed  to  get  half-way  across  the  top  of 
North  America,  discovered  the  archipelago  named 
after  him,  and  reached  114°  west  longitude, 
thereby  gaining  the  prize  of  ^5000  given  by  the 
British  Parliament  for  the  first  seaman  that  sailed 
west  of  the  iioth  meridian.  He  was  brought  up, 
however,  by  Banks  Land,  while  the  strait  which, 
if  he  had  known  it,  would  have  enabled  him  to 
complete  the  north-west  passage,  was  at  that 
time  closed  by  ice.  In  two  successive  voyages, 
in  1822  and  1824,  Parry  increased  the  detailed 
knowledge  of  the  coasts  he  had  already  discov- 
ered, but  failed  to  reach  even  as  far  westward  as 
he  had  done  on  his  first  voyage.  This  somewhat 
discouraged  government  attempts  at  exploration, 
and  the  next  expedition,  in  1829,  was  fitted  out 
by  Mr.  Felix  Booth,  sheriff  of  London,  who 
despatched  the  paddle  steamer  Victory,  com- 
manded by  John  Ross.  He  discovered  the  land 
known  as  Boothia  Felix,  and  his  nephew,  James 
C.  Ross,  proved  that  it  belonged  to  the  mainland 
of  America,  which  he  coasted  along  by  land  to 
Cape  Franklin,  besides  determining  the  exact 
position  of  the  North  Magnetic  Pole  at  Cape 
Adelaide,  on  Boothia  Felix.  After  passing  five 
years  within  the  Arctic  Circle,  Ross  and  his  com- 
panions, who  had  been  compelled  to  abandon  the 
Victory^  fell  in  with  a  whaler,  which  brought  them 
home. 


172  THE  STORY  OF  GEOGRAPHICAL   DISCOVERY. 

We  must  now  revert  to  Franklin,  who,  as  we 
have  seen,  had  been  despatched  by  the  Admiralty 
to  outline  the  north  coast  of  America,  only  two 
points  of  which  had  been  determined,  the  em- 
bouchures of  the  Coppermine  and  the  Mackenzie, 
discovered  respectively  by  Hearne  and  Mackenzie. 
It  was  not  till  182 1  that  Franklin  was  able  to 
start  out  from  the  mouth  of.  the  Coppermine  east- 
ward in  two  canoes,  by  which  he  coasted  along 
till  he  came  to  the  point  named  by  him  Point 
Turn-again.  By  that  time  only  three  days'  stores 
of  pemmican  remained,  and  it  was  only  with  the 
greatest  difficulty,  and  by  subsisting  on  lichens 
and  scraps  of  roasted  leather,  that  they  managed 
to  return  to  their  base  of  operations  at  Fort 
Enterprise.  Four  years  later,  in  1825,  Franklin 
set  out  on  another  exploring  expedition  with  the 
same  object,  starting  this  time  from  the  mouth  of 
the  Mackenzie  river,  and  despatching  one  of  his 
companions,  Richardson,  to  connect  the  coast 
between  the  Mackenzie  and  the  Coppermine; 
while  he  himself  proceeded  westward  to  meet  the 
Blossom,  which,  under  Captain  Beechey,  had  been 
despatched  to  Behring  Strait  to  bring  his  party 
back.  Richardson  was  entirely  successful  in  ex- 
amining the  coast-line  between  the  Mackenzie 
and  the  Coppermine ;  but  Beechey,  though  he 
succeeded  in  rounding  Icy  Cape  and  tracing  the 
coast  as  far  as  Point  Barrow,  did  not  come  up  to 
Franklin,  who  had  only  got  within  160  miles  at 
Return  Reef.  These  160  miles,  as  well  as  the  222 
miles  intervening  between  Cape  Turn-again, 
Franklin's  easternmost  point  by  land,  and  Cape 
Franklin,  J.  C.  Ross's  most  westerly  point,  were 
afterwards  filled  in  by  T.  Simpson  in  1837,  after 
a  coasting  voyage  in  boats  of  1408  miles,  which 


THE  POLES.  173 

Stands  as  a  record  even  to  this  day.  Meanwhile 
the  Great  Fish  River  had  been  discovered  and 
followed  to  its  mouth  by  C.  J.  Back  in  1833. 
During  the  voyage  down  the  river,  an  oar  broke 
while  the  boat  was  shooting  a  rapid,  and  one  of 
the  party  commenced  praying  in  a  loud  voice; 
whereupon  the  leader  called  out :  "  Is  this  a  time 
for  praying  ?     Pull  your  starboard  oar  !  " 

Meanwhile,  interest  had  been  excited  rather 
more  towards  the  South  Pole,  and  the  land  of 
which  Cook  had  found  traces  in  his  search  for  the 
fabled  Australian  continent  surrounding  it.  He 
had  reached  as  far  south  as  71.10°,  when  he  was 
brought  up  by  the  great  ice  barrier.  In  1820-23 
Weddell  visited  the  South  Shetlands,  south  of 
Cape  Horn,  and  found  an  active  volcano,  even 
amidst  the  extreme  cold  of  that  district.  He 
reached  as  far  south  as  74°,  but  failed  to  come 
across  land  in  that  district.  In  1839  Bellany  dis- 
covered the  islands  named  after  him,  with  a  vol- 
cano twelve  thousand  feet  high,  and  another  still 
active  on  Buckle  Island.  In  1839  ^  French  ex- 
pedition under  Dumont  d'Urville  again  visited 
and  explored  the  South  Shetlands;  while  in  the 
following  year,  Captain  Wilkes,  of  the  United 
States  navy,  discovered  the  land  named  after  him. 
But  the  most  remarkable  discovery  made  in  Ant- 
arctica was  that  of  Sir  J.  C.  Ross,  who  had  been 
sent  by  the  Admiralty  in  1840  to  identify  the 
South  Magnetic  Pole,  as  we  have  seen  he  had  dis- 
covered that  of  the  north.  With  the  two  ships 
Erebus  and  Terror  he  discovered  Victoria  Land 
and  the  two  active  volcanoes  named  after  his 
ships,  which  he  found  pouring  forth  flaming  lava 
amidst  the  snow.  In  January,  1842,  he  reached 
farthest  south,  78**.    After  the  return  of  the  Ross 


174   THE  STORY  OF  GEOGRAPHICAL  DISCOVERY. 

expedition  little  was  attempted  toward  the  ex- 
ploration of  the  Antarctic  regions  for  more  than 
half  a  century. 

On  the  return  of  the  Erebus  and  Terror  from 
the  South  Seas  the  government  placed  these  two 
vessels  at  the  disposal  of  Franklin  (who  had  been 
knighted  for  his  previous  discoveries),  and  on  the 
26th  of  May,  1845,  he  started  with  one  hundred 
and  twenty-nine  souls  on  board  the  two  vessels, 
which  were  provisioned  up  to  July,  1848.  They 
were  last  seen  by  a  whaler  on  the  26th  July,  of 
the  former  year  waiting  to  pass  into  Lancaster 
Sound.  After  penetrating  as  far  north  as  77°, 
through  Wellington  Channel,  Franklin  was 
obliged  to  winter  upon  Beechey  Island,  and  in  the 
following  year  (September,  1846)  his  two  ships 
were  beset  in  Victoria  Strait,  about  twelve  miles 
from  King  William  Land.  Curiously  enough,  in 
the  following  year  (1847)  J.  Rae  had  been  de- 
spatched by  land  from  Cape  Repulse  in  Hudson's 
Bay,  and  had  coasted  along  the  east  coast  of 
Boothia,  thus  connecting  Ross's  and  Franklin's 
coast  journeys  with  Hudson's  Bay.  On  i8th 
April,  1847,  Rae  had  reached  a  point  on  Boothia 
less  than  150  miles  from  Franklin  on  the  other 
side  of  it.  Less  than  two  months  later,  on  the 
nth  June,  Franklin  died  on  the  Erebus.  His 
ships  were  only  provisioned  to  July,  1848,  and 
remained  still  beset  throughout  the  whole  of  1847. 
Crozier,  upon  whom  the  command  devolved,  left 
the  ship  with  one  hundred  and  five  survivors  to 
try  and  reach  Back's  Fish  River.  They  struggled 
along  the  west  coast  of  King  William  Land,  but 
failed  to  reach  their  destination  ;  disease,  and 
even  starvation,  gradually  lessened  their  numbers. 
An   old  Eskimo    woman,    who  had    watched   the 


THE  POLES. 


175 


North  polar  region— western  half. 


176  THE  STORY  OF  GEOGRAPHICAL  DISCOVERY. 

melancholy  procession,  afterwards  told  M'Clin- 
tock  they  fell  down  and  died  as  they  walked. 

By  this  time  considerable  anxiety  had  been 
roused  by  the  absence  of  any  news  from  Frank- 
lin's party.  Richardson  and  Rae  were  despatched 
by  land  in  1848,  while  two  ships  were  sent  on  the 
attempt  to  reach  Franklin  through  Bering  Strait, 
and  two  others,  the  Investigator  and  the  Enter- 
prise^ under  J.  C.  Ross,  through  Baffin  Bay.  Rae 
reached  the  east  coast  of  Victoria  Land,  and  ar- 
rived within  fifty  miles  of  the  spot  where  Frank- 
lin's two  ships  had  been  abandoned  ;  but  it  was 
not  till  his  second  expedition  by  land,  which 
started  in  1853,  that  he  obtained  any  news.  After 
wintering  at  Lady  Pelly  Bay,  on  the  20th  April, 
1854,  Rae  met  a  young  Eskimo,  who  told  him 
that  four  years  previously  forty  white  men  had 
been  seen  dragging  a  boat  to  the  south  on  the 
west  shore  of  King  William  Land,  and  a  few 
months  later  the  bodies  of  thirty  of  these  men 
had  been  found  by  the  Eskimo,  who  produced 
silver  with  the  Franklin  crest  to  confirm  the 
truth  of  their  statement.  Further  searches  by 
land  were  continued  up  to  as  late  as  1879,  when 
Lieutenant  F.  Schwatka,  of  the  United  States 
army,  discovered  several  of  the  graves  and  skel- 
etons of  the  Franklin  expedition. 

Neither  of  the  two  attempts  by  sea  from  the 
Atlantic  or  from  the  Pacific  base,  in  1848,  having 
succeeded  in  gaining  any  news,  the  Enterprise  and 
the  Investigator,  which  had  previously  attempted 
to  reach  Franklin  from  the  east,  were  despatched 
in  1850,  under  Captain  R.  Collinson  and  Captain 
M'Clure,  to  attempt  the  search  from  the  west 
through  Bering  Strait.  M'Clure  in  the  Ijwesti- 
gator^  did  not  wait  for  Collinson,  as  he  had  been 


THE  POLES.  177 

directed,  but  pushed  on  and  discovered  Banks 
Land,  and  became  beset  in  the  ice  in  Prince  of 
Wales  Strait.  In  the  winter  of  1850-51  he  en- 
deavoured unsuccessfully  to  work  his  way  from 
this  strait  into  Parry  Sound,  but  in  August  and 
September,  185 1,  managed  to  coast  round  Banks 
Land  to  its  most  north-westerly  point,  and  then 
succeeded  in  passing  through  the  strait  named  after 
M'Clure,  and  reached  Barrow  Strait,  thus  perform- 
ing for  the  first  time  the  north-west  passage, 
though  it  was  not  till  1853  that  the  Investigator 
was  abandoned.  Collinson,  in  the  Enterprise^  fol- 
lowed M'Clure  closely,  though  never  reaching 
him,  and  attempting  to  round  Prince  Albert  Land 
by  the  south  through  Dolphin  Strait,  reached 
Cambridge  Bay  at  the  nearest  point  by  ship  of  all 
the  Franklin  expeditions.  He  had  to  return  west- 
ward, and  only  reached  England  in  1855,  after  an 
absence  of  five  years  and  four  months. 

From  the  east  no  less  than  ten  vessels  had 
attempted  the  Franklin  sea  search  in  185 1,  com- 
prising two  Admiralty  expeditions,  one  private 
English  one,  an  American  combined  government 
and  private  party,  together  with  a  ship  put  in  com- 
mission by  the  wifely  devotion  of  Lady  Franklin. 
These  all  attempted  the  search  of  Lancaster 
Sound,  where  Franklin  had  last  been  seen,  and 
they  only  succeeded  in  finding  three  graves  of 
men  who  had  died  at  an  early  stage,  and  had  been 
buried  on  Beechey  Island.  Another  set  of  four 
vessels  were  despatched  under  Sir  Edward  Belcher 
in  1852,  who  were  fortunate  enough  to  reach 
M'Clure  in  the  Investigator  in  the  following  year, 
and  enable  him  to  complete  the  north-west  pas- 
sage, for  which  he  gained  the  reward  of  ^^10,000 
offered  by  Parliament  in  1763.     But  Belcher  was 


178  THE  STORY  OF  GEOGRAPHICAL  DISCOVERY. 

obliged  to  abandon  most  of  his  vessels,  one  of 
which  the  Resolute,  drifted  over  a  thousand  miles, 
and  having  been  recovered  by  an  American  whaler, 
was  refitted  by  the  United  States  and  presented 
to  the  Queen  and  people  of  Great  Britain. 

Notwithstanding  all  these  efforts,  the  Franklin 
remains  have  not  yet  been  discovered,  though  Dr. 
Rae,  as  we  have  seen,  had  practically  ascertained 
their  terrible  fate.  Lady  Franklin,  however,  was 
not  satisfied  with  this  vague  information.  She 
was  determined  to  fit  out  still  another  expedition, 
though  already  over  ^^35,000  had  been  spent  by 
private  means,  mostly  from  her  own  personal  for- 
tune; and  in  1857  the  steam  yacht  Fox  ^d^s  de- 
spatched under  M'Clintock,  who  had  already 
shown  himself  the  most  capable  master  of  sledge 
work.  He  erected  a  monument  to  the  Franklin 
expedition  on  Beechey  Island  in  1858,  and  then 
following  Peel  Sound,  he  made  inquiries  of  the 
natives  throughout  the  winter  of  1858-59.  This 
led  him  to  search  King  William  Land,  where,  on 
the  25th  May,  he  came  across  a  bleached  human 
skeleton  lying  on  its  face,  showing  that  the  man 
had  died  as  he  walked.  Meanwhile,  Hobson,  one 
of  his  companions,  discovered  a  record  of  the 
Franklin  expedition,  stating  briefly  its  history 
between  1845  and  1848;  and  with  this  definite 
information  of  the  fate  of  the  Franklin  expe- 
dition M'Clintock  returned  to  England  in  1859, 
having  succeeded  in  solving  the  problem  of 
Franklin's  fate,  while  exploring  over  800  miles  of 
coast-line  in  the  neighbourhood  of  King  William 
Land. 

The  result  of  the  various  Franklin  expeditions 
had  thus  been  to  map  out  the  intricate  network 
of  islands  dotted  over  the  north  of  North  America. 


THE   POLES. 


179 


North  polar  region— eastern  half. 


l8o  THE   STORY  OF  GEOGRAPHICAL   DISCOVERY. 

None  of  these,  however,  reached  much  farther 
north  than  75°. 

Only  Smith  Sound  promised  to  lead  north  of 
the  80th  parallel.  This  had  been  discovered  as 
early  as  1616  by  Baffin,  whose  farthest  north  was 
only  exceeded  by  forty  miles,  in  1852,  by  Ingle- 
field  in  the  Isabel^  one  of  the  ships  despatched  in 
search  of  Franklin.  He  was  followed  up  by  Kane 
in  the  Advance,  fitted  out  in  1853  by  the  munifi- 
cence of  two  American  citizens,  Grinnell  and  Pea- 
body.  Kane  worked  his  way  right  through  Smith 
Sound  and  Robeson  Channel  into  the  sea  named 
after  him.  For  two  years  he  continued  investigat- 
ing Grinnell  Land  and  the  adjacent  shores  of 
Greenland.  Subsequent  investigations  by  Hayes 
in  i860,  and  Hall  ten  years  later,  kept  alive  the 
interest  in  Smith  Sound  and  its  neighbourhood; 
and  in  1873  three  ships  were  despatched  under 
Captain  (afterwards  Sir  George)  Nares,  who  nearly 
completed  the  survey  of  Grinnell  Land,  and  one 
of  his  lieutenants,  Pelham  Aldrich,  succeeded  in 
reaching  82.48°  N,  About  the  same  time,  an  Aus- 
trian expedition  under  Payer  and  Weyprecht  ex- 
plored the  highest  known  land,  much  to  the  east, 
named  by  them  Franz  Josef  Land,  after  the  Aus- 
trian Emperor. 

Simultaneously  interest  in  the  northern  regions 
was  aroused  by  the  successful  exploit  of  the  north- 
east passage  by  Professor  (afterwards  Baron)  Nor- 
denskiold,  who  had  made  seven  or  eight  voyages 
in  Arctic  regions  between  1858  and  1870.  He  first 
established  the  possibility  of  passing  from  Norway 
to  the  mouth  of  the  Yenesei  in  the  summer,  making 
two  journeys  in  1875-76.  These  have  since  been 
followed  up  for  commercial  purposes  by  Captain 
Wiggins,  who  has  frequently  passed  from  Eng- 


THE  POLES.  l8l 

land  to  the  mouth  of  the  Yenesei  in  a  merchant 
vessel.  As  Siberia  develops  there  can  be  little 
doubt  that  this  route  will  become  of  increasing 
commercial  importance.  Professor  Nordenskiold, 
however,  encouraged  by  his  easy  passage  to  the 
Yenesei,  determined  to  try  to  get  round  into  Be- 
ring Strait  from  that  point,  and  in  1878  he  started 
in  the  Fega,  accompanied  by  the  Lena,  and  a  col- 
lier to  supply  them  with  coai.  On  the  19th  Au- 
gust they  passed  Cape  Chelyuskin,  the  most  north- 
erly point  of  the  Old  World.  From  here  the  Lena 
appropriately  turned  its  course  to  the  mouth  of  its 
namesake,  while  the  Vega  proceeded  on  her  course, 
reaJ-ving  on  the  r2th  September  Cape  North,  with- 
in 120  miles  of  Bering  Strait;  this  cape  Cook  had 
reached  from  the  east  in  1778.  Unfortunately 
the  ice  became  packed  so  closely  that  they  could 
not  proceed  farther,  and  they  had  to  remain  in 
this  tantalising  condition  for  no  less  than  ten 
months.  On  the  i8th  July,  1879,  the  ice  broke  up, 
and  two  days  later  the  Vega  rounded  East  Cape 
with  flying  colours,  saluting  the  easternmost  coast 
of  Asia  in  honour  of  the  completion  of  the  north- 
east passage.  Baron  Nordenskiold  has  since  en- 
joyed a  well-earned  leisure  from  his  arduous  la- 
bours in  the  north  by  studying  and  publishing  the 
history  of  early  cartography,  on  which  he  has  is- 
sued two  valuable  atlases,  containing  fac-similes 
of  the  maps  and  charts  of  the  Middle  Ages. 

General  interest  thus  re-aroused  in  Arctic  ex- 
ploration brought  about  a  united  effort  of  all  the 
civilised  nations  to  investigate  the  conditions  of 
the  Polar  regions.  An  international  Polar  Confer- 
ence was  held  at  Hamburg  in  1879,  at  which  it  was 
determined  to  surround  the  North  Pole  for  the  years 
1882-83  by  stations  of  scientific  observation,  in- 


1 82  THE   STORY  OF  GEOGRAPHICAL  DISCOVERY. 

tended  to  study  the  conditions  of  the  Polar  Ocean. 
No  less  than  fifteen  expeditions  were  sent  forth, 
some  to  the  Antarctic  regions,  but  most  of  them 
round  the  North  Pole.  Their  object  was  more  to 
subserve  the  interest  of  physical  geography  than 
to  promote  the  interest  of  geographical  discovery  ; 
but  one  of  the  expeditions,  that  of  the  United 
States  under  Lieutenant  A.  W.  Greely,  again  took 
up  the  study  of  Smith  Sound  and  its  outlets,  and 
one  of  his  men,  Lieutenant  Lockwood,  succeeded 
in  reaching  83.24°  N.,  within  450  miles  of  the  Pole, 
and  up  to  that  time  the  farthest  north  reached  by 
any  human  being.  The  Greely  expedition  also 
succeeded  in  showing  that  Greenland  was  not  so 
much  ice-capped  as  ice-surrounded. 

Hitherto  the  universal  method  by  which  discov- 
eries had  been  made  in  the  Polar  regions  was  to 
establish  a  base  at  which  sufficient  food  was  cached, 
then  to  push  in  any  required  direction  as  far  as 
possible,  leaving  successive  caches  to  be  returned 
to  when  provisions  fell  short  on  the  forward  jour- 
ney. But  in  1888,  Dr.  Fridjof  Nansen  determined 
on  a  bolder  method  of  investigating  the  interior 
of  Greenland.  He  was  deposited  upon  the  east 
coast,  where  there  were  no  inhabitants,  and  started 
to  cross  Greenland,  his  life  depending  upon  the 
success  of  his  journey,  since  he  left  no  reserves  in 
the  rear  and  it  would  be  useless  to  return.  He  suc- 
ceeded brilliantly  in  his  attempt,  and  his  exploit 
was  followed  up  by  two  successive  attempts  of 
Lieut.  Peary  in  1892-95,  who  succeeded  in  cross- 
ing Greenland  at  much  higher  latitude  even  than 
Nansen. 

The  success  of  his  bold  plan  encouraged  Dr. 
Nansen  to  attempt  an  even  bolder  one.  He  had 
become  convinced,  from  the  investigations  con- 


THE   POLES. 


183 


WESTERN 
HEMISPHERE 


Abruzzi,  1899. 


A.  W.  Greely,  1882. 
G.  S.  Nares,  1876. 


C.  F.  Hall,  1870, 


E.  K.  Kane,  1854. 


90 


A 


86 


84 


82 


80 


EASTERN 
HEMISPHERE. 


Nansen,  1895. 


E.  A.  INGLEFIELD,  1852.     78 

William  Baffin,  i6i6. 


76 


W.  E.  Parry,  1827. 
Payer  and  Weyprecht, 

1874. 
nordenskiold,  1868. 
William  Scoresby,  1806. 
J.  C.  Phipps,  1773. 
Hudson,  1607. 


William  Barentz,  1594. 


74 


Henry  Hudson,  1607. 


John  Davis,  1587.  72  M 

Climbing  the  North  Pole. 


1 84  THE  STORY  OF  GEOGRAPHICAL  DISCOVERY. 

Baldwin,  which  in  1 901  attempted  the  dash  to  the 
Pole  from  the  base  of  Franz  Josef  Land,  re- 
turned in  1902,  having  accomplished  almost 
nothing.  Peary,  however,  in  1906,  reached  87.6° 
by  way  of  Smith  Sound,  traced  the  north  coast 
of  Grant  Land,  and  discovered  new  land  in  about 
100°  W. 

In  July,  ig»o8,  Peary  left  New  York  in  the 
Roosevelt  on  his  eighth  Arctic  expedition.  After 
wintering  near  Cape  Sheridan,  a  party  of  seven, 
accompanied  by  59  Eskimos,  left  the  Roosevelt 
in  sledges  in  February,  1909.  From  84°  most  of 
the  Eskimos  were  sent  back,  and  16  men,  with  12 
sledges  and  100  dogs,  started  on  the  final  dash 
which  was  to  result  in  the  discovery  of  the  Pole. 
Peary  reached  the  Pole  on  April  6,  1909.  He 
found  surrounding  it,  as  had  been  surmised  for 
many  years,  a  continuous  ice  field,  and  soundings 
of  9,000  feet  failed  to  reach  the  sea  bottom.  The 
return  journey  was  made  without  mishap. 

Meanwhile  interest  in  Antarctic  exploration 
had  been  revived.  C.  E.  Borchgrevink,  of  Nor- 
way, explored  Victoria  Land  in  1894-95,  and  in 
1897  made  an  unsuccessful  attempt  to  reach  the 
Pole,  reaching  78.5°.  Dr.  Otto  Nordenskiold,  of 
Sweden,  headed  an  expedition  in  1901-4  which 
reached  Cape  Seymour,  and  during  the  same 
period  a  British  expedition  under  Capt.  R.  F. 
Scott  explored  the  inland  ice  of  Victoria  Land 
and  reached  latitude  82°  17'.  A  British  national 
expedition  in  1903-5  explored  the  region  south- 
east of  Cape  Horn  and  drifting  along  the  ice  bar- 
rier discovered  King  Edward  VH  Land. 

The  quest  of  the  South  Pole  began  in  earnest 
with  the  sending  out  of  the  British  national  ex- 
pedition under  Lieut.  Ernest  Shackleton  in  1907. 


THE  POLES.  185 

In  January,  1909,  a  few  days  before  one  of  his 
parties  reached  the  South  magnetic  pole,  Shack- 
leton  gained  a  point  within  1 1 1  miles  of  the  South 
Pole  and  was  able  to  report  that  the  Pole  was 
situated  on  a  high  plateau  about  10,000  feet  above 
sea  level.  Capt.  Scott  left  New  Zealand  on  his 
second  expedition  in  November,  1910,  with  the 
intention  of  taking  up  the  exploration  of  the  Ant- 
arctic continent  at  the  point  where  his  former 
expedition  and  that  of  Shackleton  had  left  off. 
Scott  reached  the  Pole  on  January  18,  1912,  only 
to  find  that  he  had  been  anticipated  by  Capt. 
Roald  Amundsen.  Amundsen,  who  was  the  first 
to  accomplish,  in  1903,  the  complete  traverse  of 
the  Northwest  Passage,  had  left  Norway  early 
in  191 1  for  an  expedition  to  the  Arctic.  Sud- 
denly changing  his  plans  to  attempt  the  South 
Pole,  he  spent  the  winter  of  1909  on  the  ice  bar- 
rier at  Bay  of  Whales,  Ross  Sea.  Leaving  his 
camp  on  October  20,  191 1,  he  reached  the  Pole 
on  December  14,  by  a  route  about  750  miles  in 
length.  Amundsen  returned  in  safety,  the  whole 
expedition  having  been  favored  by  good  weather 
conditions.  But  Capt.  Scott,  who  had  been  op- 
posed by  storms  on  his  final  dash  to  the  Pole,  was 
overtaken  by  a  blizzard  on  his  return  journey 
and  perished  with  cold  and  hunger  with  four  com- 
panions, on  March  29,  1912.  Thus  to  the  end 
polar  discovery  claimed  its  toll  of  human  lives. 


ANNALS   OF   DISCOVERY. 


B.C. 

dr.  600.  Marseilles  founded. 

570.  Anaximander  of  Miletus  invents  maps  and  the  gncv 

mon. 
501.   Hecataeus  of  Miletus  writes  the  first  geography. 
450.  Himilco  the  Carthaginian  said  to  have  visited  Britain. 
446.  Herodotus  describes  Egypt  and  Scythia. 
cir,  450.  Hanno  the  Carthaginian  sails  down  the  west  coast 

of  Africa  as  far  as  Sierra  Leone. 
cir.  333.  Pytheas  visits  Britain  and  the  Low  Countries. 
332.  Alexander  conquers  Persia  and  visits  India. 
330.  Nearchus  sails  from  the  Indus  to  the  Arabian  Gulf. 
cir.  300.  Megasthenes  describes  the  Punjab. 
cir.  200.  Eratosthenes  founds  scientific  geography. 

100.  Marinus   of  Tyre,   founder   of    mathematical   geo- 
graphy. 
60-54.  Caesar  conquers  Gaul ;   visits  Britain,   Switzerland, 
and  Germany. 
20.  Strabo  describes  the  Roman  Empire.     First  mention 
of  Thule  and  Ireland. 
bef.     12.  Agrippa  compiles  a  Mappa  Mundi,  the  foundation 
of  all  succeeding  ones. 

A.D. 

150.  Ptolemy  publishes  his  geography. 
230.  The  Peutinger  Table  pictures  the  Roman  roads. 
400-14.  Fa-hien  travels  through  and  describes  Afghanistan 
and  India. 
499.  Hoei-Sin  said  to  have  visited  the  kingdom  of  Fu- 
sang,  20,000  furlongs  east  of  China  (identified  by 
some  with  California). 
518-21.  Hoei-Sing   and    Sung-Yun   visit   and    describe  the 
Pamirs  and  the  Punjab. 
540.  Cosmas  Indicopleustes  visits  India,  and  combats  the 
sphericity  of  the  globe. 
629-46.  Hiouen-Tshang  travels  through  Turkestan,  Afghan- 
istan, India,  and  the  Pamirs. 

186 


ANNALS  OF  DISCOVERY.  187 

671-95.  I-tsing  travels  through  and  describes  Java,  Sumatra, 
and  India. 
776.  The  Mappa  Mundi  of  Beatus. 
851-916.  Sulaim^n  and  Abu  Zaid  visit  China. 
861.  Naddod  discovers  Iceland. 

884.  Ibn  Khordadbeh  describes  the  trade  routes  between 
Europe  and  Asia, 
dr.  890.  Wulfstan  and  Othere  sail  to  the  Baltic  and  the  North 

Cape. 
dr.  900.  Gunbiom  discovers  Greenland. 
912-30.  The  geographer  Mas'udi  describes  the  lands  of  Is- 
lam, from  Spaint  o  Further  India,  in  his  "  Mead- 
ows of  Gold." 
921.  Ahmed  Ibn  Fozlan  describes  the  Russians, 
969,  Ibn  Haukal  composes  his  book  on  Ways. 
985,  Eric  the  Red  colonises  Greenland. 
dr.  1000.  Lyef,  son  of  Eric  the  Red,  discovers  Newfoundland 
(Helluland),    Nova    Scotia   (Markland),   and    the 
mainland  of  North  America  (Vinland). 
Ill  I.  Earliest  use  of  the  water-compass  by  Chinese. 
1154.  Edrisi,  geographer  to  King  Roger  of  Sicily,  produces 
his  geography. 
1159-73.  Rabbi  Benjamin  of  Tudela  visited  the  Persian  Gulf; 

reported  on  India. 
dr,  1 180.  The  compass  first  mentioned  by  Alexander  Neckam. 
1255.  William  Ruysbroek  (Rubruquis),  a  Flemmg,  visits 
Karakorum. 
1260-71.  The  brothers  Nicolo  and  Maffeo  Polo,  father  and 
uncle   of   Marco    Polo,   make    their   first   trading 
venture  through  Central  Asia. 
1271-95.  They  make  their  second  journey,  accompanied  by 
Marco  Polo  ;  and  about  1275  arrived  at  the  Court 
of  Kublai  Khan  in  Shangfu,  whence  Marco  Polo 
was  entrusted    with    several  missions    to   Cochin 
China,  Khanbalig  (Pekin),  and  the  Indian  Seas. 
1280.  Hereford  map  of  Richard  of  Haldingham, 
1284.  The  Ebstorf  Mappa  Mundi. 
bef.  1290,  The  normal  Portulano  compiled  in  Barcelona. 

1292,  Friar  John  of  Monte  Corvino,  travels  in  India,  and 
afterwards  becomes  Archbishop  of  Pekin, 
1325-78.  Ibn  Batuta,  an  Arab  of  Tangier,  after  performing  the 
Mecca  pilgrimage  through  N.  Africa,  visits  Syria, 
Quiloa  (E.  Africa),  Ormuz,  S.  Russia,  Bulgaria, 
Khiva,  Candahar,   and  attached  himself  to   the 


1 88  ANNALS  OF  DISCOVERY. 

Court  of  Delhi,  1334-42,  whence  he  was  de- 
spatched on  an  embassy  to  China.  After  his 
return  he  visited  Timbuctoo. 

1316-30.  Odorico  di  Pordenone,  a  Minorite  friar,  travelled 
through  India,  by  way  of  Persia,  Bombay,  and 
Surat,  to  Malabar,  the  Coromandel  coast,  and 
thence  to  China  and  Tibet. 
1320.  Flavio  Gioja  of  Amalfi  invents  the  compass  box  and 
card. 

1312-31.  Abulfeda  composes  his  geography. 

1327-72,  Sir  John  Mandeville  said  to  have  written  his  travels 
in  India. 
1328.  Friar  Jordanus  of  Severac,  Bishop  of  Quilon. 

1328-49,  John  de  MarignoUi,  a  Franciscan  friar,  made  a  mis^ 
sion  to  China,  visited  Quilon  in  1347,  and  made  a 
pilgrimage  to  the  shrine  of  St.  Thomas  in  India  in 

1349. 
1339.  Angelico  Dulcert  of  Majorca  draws  a  Portulano. 
1351.  The  Medicean  Portulano  compiled. 
1375.  Cresquez,  the  Jew,  of  Majorca,  improves  Dulcert's 

Portulano  (Catalan  map). 
cir.  1400.  Jehan  Bethencourt  re-discovers  the  Canaries. 

1419.  Prince  Henry  the  Navigator  establishes  a  geograph- 

ical seminary  at  Sagres  (died  1460). 
1419-40.  Nicolo  Conti,  a  noble  Venetian,  travelled  throughout 
Southern  India  and  along  the  Bombay  coast. 

1420.  Zarco  discovers  Madeira. 

1432.  Gonsalo  Cabral  re-discovers  the  Azores. 
1442.  Nuno  Tristao  reaches  Cape  de  Verde. 
1442-44.  Abd-ur-Razzak,  during  an  embassy  to  India,  visited 

Calicut,  Mangalore,  and  Vijayanagar. 
1457.  Fra  Mauro's  map. 
1462.  Pedro  de  Cintra  reaches  Sierra  Leone. 
1468-74.  Athanasius    Nikitin,  a    Russia,    travelled   from  the 

Volga,  through  Central  Asia  and  Persia,  to  Gujerat, 

Cambay,  and  Chaul,  whence  he  proceeded  inland 

to  Bidar  and  Golconda. 
147 1.  Fernando  Poo  discovers  his  island. 
1471.  Pedro  d'Escobar  crosses  the  line. 
1474.  Toscanelli's  map  (foundation  of  Behaim  globe  and 

Columbus'  guide). 
1478.  Second  printed   edition  of  Ptolemy,   with  twenty. 

seven  maps — practically  the  first  atlas. 
1484.  Diego  Cam  discovers  the  Congo. 


ANNALS  OF  DISCOVERY.  189 

i486.  Bartholomew  Diaz  rounds  the  Cape  of  Good  Hope. 
1487.  Pedro  de  Covilham  visits  Ormuz,  Goa,  and  Malabar, 

and  afterwards  settled  in  Abyssinia. 
1492.  Martin  Behaim  makes  his  globe. 
1492.  6th  September.     Columbus  starts  from  the  Canaries. 

1492.  1 2th    October.      Columbus  lands  at    San    Salvador 

(Watling  Island). 
1493'  3rd    May.      Bull    of  partition   between    Spain  and 
Portugal  issued  by  Pope  Alexander  VI. 

1493.  September.      Columbus  on  his  second  voyage  dis- 

covers Jamaica. 
1494-99.  Hieronimo  di  Santo  Stefana,  a  Genoese,  visited 
Malabar  and  the  Coromandel  coast,  Ceylon  and 
Pegu. 
1497.  Vasco  da  Gama  rounds  the  Cape,  sees  Natal  (Christ- 
mas Day)  and  Mozambique,  lands  at  Zanzibar, 
and  crosses  to  Calicut. 

1497.  John  Cabot  re-discovers  Newfoundland. 

1498.  Columbus  on  his  third  voyage  discovers  Trinidad  and 

the  Orinoco. 

1499.  Amerigo  Vespucci  discovers  Venezuela. 

1499.  Pinzon  discovers  mouth    of   Amazon,   and  doubles 

Cape  St.  Roque. 

1500.  Pedro  Cabral  discovers  Brazil  on  his  way  to  Calicut. 
1500.  First  map  of  the  Nesv  World,  by  Juan  de  la  Cosa. 

1500.  Corte  Real  lands  at  mouth  of  St.  Lawrence,  and  re- 

discovers Labrador. 

1501.  Vespucci  coasts  down  S.  America  and  proves  that  it 

is  a  New  World. 
1501.  Tristan  d'Acunha  discovers  his  island. 

1501.  Juan  di  Nova  discovers  the  island  of  Ascension 

1502.  Bermudez  discovers  his  islands. 

1502-4.  Columbus  on  his  fourth  voyage  explores  Honduras. 
1503-8.  Travels  of  Ludovico  di  Varthema  in  Further  India. 
1505.  Mascarenjias  discovers  the  islands  of  Bourbon  and 

Mauritius. 
1507.   Martin    Waldseemiiller   proposes    to  call   the    New 

World  America  in  his  0>sm agraphia. 
1509.  Malacca  visited  by  Lopes  di  Sequira. 

15 12.  Molucca,    or   Spice    Islands,    visited    by    Francisco 

Serrao. 

1513.  Strasburg  Ptolemy    contains  twenty   new  maps   by 

Waldseemiiller,  forming  the  first  modem  atlas. 
1513.  Ponce  de  Leon  discovers  Florida. 


1 9©  ANNALS  OF  DISCOVERY. 

1 5 13.  Vasco  Nunez  de  Balbao  crosses  the  Isthmus  of  Pan- 
ama, and  sees  the  Pacific. 

1 517.  Sebastian  Cabot  said  to  have  discovered  Hudson's 
Bay. 

1 5 17.  Juan  Diaz  de  Solis  discovers  the  Rio  de  la  Plata, 

and  is  murdered  on  the  island  of  Martin  Garcia. 

1 5 18.  Grijalva  discovers  Mexico. 

15 19.  Fernando  Cortez  conquers  Mexico. 

15 19.  Fernando  Magellan  starts  on  the  circumnavigation 
of  the  globe. 

1 519.  Guray  explores  north  coast  of  Gulf  of  Mexico. 

1520.  Schoner's  second  globe. 

1520.  Magellan  sees  Monte  Video,  discovers  Patagonia  and 

Tierra  del  Fuego,  and  traverses  the  Pacific. 
1520-26.  Alvarez  explores  the  Soudan. 

1521.  Magellan  discovers  the  Ladrones  (Marianas),  and  is 

killed  on  the  Philippines. 

1522.  Magellan's  ship  Victoria,  under  Sebastian  del  Cano, 

reaches  Spain,  having  circumnavigated  the  globe 
in  three  years. 

1524.  Verazzano,  on  behalf  of  the  French  King,  coasts 
from  Cape  Fear  to  New  Hampshire. 

1527.  Saavedra  sails  from  west  coast  of  Mexico  to  the  Mo- 
luccas. 

1529.  Line  of  demarcation  between  Spanish  and  Portu- 
guese fixed  at  17°  east  of  Moluccas. 

1 53 1.  Francisco  Pizarro  conquers  Peru. 

1532.  Cortez  visits  California. 

1534.  Jacques  Cartier  explores  the  gulf  and  river  of  St. 

Lawrence. 

1535.  Diego  d'Almagro  conquers  Chili. 

1536.  Gonsalo  Pizarro  passes  the  Andes. 

1537-58.  Ferdinand  Mendez  Pinto  travels  to  Abyssinia,  India, 
the  Malay  Archipelago,  China,  and  Japan. 

1538.  Gerhardt  Mercator  begins  his  career  as  geographer. 

(Globe,  1541  ;  projection,  1539 ;  died  1594  ;  atlas, 

1595.) 

1539.  Francesco  de  Ulloa  explores  the  Gulf  of  California. 

1 541.  Orellana  sails  down  the  Amazon. 

1542.  Ruy  Lopez  de  Villalobos  discovers  New  Philippines, 

Garden  Islands,  and  Pelew  Islands,  and  takes  pos- 
session of  the  Philippines  for  Spain. 

1542.  Cabrillo  advances  as  far  as  Cape  Mendocino. 

1542.  Japan  first  visited  by  Antonio  de  Mota. 


ANNALS  OF  DISCOVERY.  191 

1542.  Gaetano  sees  the  Sandwich  Islands. 

1543.  Ortez  de  Retis  discovers  New  Guinea. 

1544.  Sebastian  Munster's  Cosmographia. 

1549.  Bareto  and  Homera  explore  the  lower  Zambesi. 

1553.  Sir  Hugh  Willoughby  attempts  the  North-East  Pass- 

age past  North  Cape,  and  sights  Novaya  Zemlya. 

1554.  Richard    Chancellor,    Willoughby's    pilot,    reaches 

Archangel,  and  travels  overland  to  Moscow. 
1556-72.  Antonio  Laperis'  atlas  published  at  Rome. 

1558.  Anthony  Jenkinson  travels  from   Moscow   to   Bok- 
hara. 

1567.  Alvaro  Mendaiia  discovers  Solomon  Islands. 

1572.  Juan  Fernandez  discovers  his  island,  and  St.  Felix 

and  St.  Ambrose  Islands. 

1573.  Abraham  Ortelius'  Teatrum  Orbis  Terrarum. 
1576.  Martin  Frobisher  discovers  his  bay. 

1577-79.  Francis  Drake  circumnavigates  the  globe,  and  ex- 
plores the  west  coast  of  North  America. 

1579.  Yermak  Timovief  seizes  Sibir,  on  the  Irtish. 

1580.  Dutch  settle  in  Guiana. 

1586.  John  Davis  sails  through  his  strait,  and  reaches  lat. 

72°  N. 
1590.  Battel  visits  the  lower  Congo. 
1592.  The  Molyneux  globe. 
1592.  Juan  de  Fuca  imagines  he  has  discovered   an  im. 

mense  sea  in  the  north-west  of  North  America. 
1596.  William  Barentz  discovers  Spitzbergen,  and  reaches 

lat.  80°  N. 
1596.  Payz  traverses  the  Horn    of  Africa,  and  visits  the 

.  source  of  the  Blue  Nile. 
1598,  Mendana  discovers  Marquesas  Islands. 

1598.  Hakluyt  publishes  his  Principal  Navigations. 

1599,  Houtman  reaches  Achin,  in  Sumatra. 

1603.  Stephen  Bennett  re-discovers  Cherry  Island,  74.13* 
N. 

1605.  Louis  Vaes  de  Torres  discovers  his  strait. 

1606.  Quiros  discovers  Tahiti  and  north-east  coast  of  Aus- 

tralia. 

1608.  Champlain  discovers  Lake  Ontario. 

1609.  Henry  Hudson  discovers  his  river. 

1610.  Hudson  passes  through  his  strait  into  his  bay. 

1611.  Jan  Mayen  discovers  his  island. 

161 5.  Lemaire  rounds  Cape  Horn  (Hoom),  and  sees  New 
Britain. 


192  ANNALS  OF  DISCOVERY. 

1616.  Dirk  Hartog  coasts  West  Australia  to  27°  S. 

1616.  Baffin  discovers  his  bay. 

1618.  George  Thompson,  a  Barbary  merchant,  sails  up  the 

Gambia. 
i6ig.  Edel  and  Houtman  coast  Western  Australia  to  32^° 

S.  (Edel's  Land). 

1622.  Dutch   ship  Leeuwin    reaches   south-west   cape  of 

Australia. 

1623.  Lobo  explores  Abyssinia. 

1627.  Peter  Nuyts  discovers  his  archipelago. 

1630.  First  meridian  of  longitude  fixed   at  Ferro,  in   the 

Canary  Islands. 

163 1.  Fox  explores  Hudson's  Bay. 

1638.  W.  J.  Blaeu's  Atlas. 

1639.  Kupiloff  crosses  Siberia  to  the  east  coast. 

1642.  Abel  Jansen  Tasman  discovers  Van  Diemen's  Land 
(Tasmania)  and  Staaten  Land  (New  Zealand). 

1642.  Wasilei  Pojarkof  traces  the  course  of  the  Amur. 

1643.  Hendrik  Brouwer  identifies  New  Zealand. 

1643.  Tasman  discovers  Fiji. 

1644.  Michael  Staduchin  reaches  the  Kolima. 

1645.  Nicholas  Sanson's  atlas. 

1645.  Italian  Capuchin  Mission  explores  the  lower  Congo. 
1648.  The  Cossack  Dishinef  sails  between  Asia  and  Amer- 
ica. 
1650.  Staduchin  reaches  the  Anadir,  and  meets  Dishinef. 
1682.  La  Salle  descends  the  Mississippi. 
1696.   Russians  reach  Kamtschatka. 

1699.  Dampier  discovers  his  strait. 

1700.  Delisle's  maps. 

1 701.  Sinpopoff  describes  the  land  of  the  Tschutkis. 
1718.  Jesuit  map  of  China  and  East  Asia  published  by  the 

Emperor  Kang-hi. 
1721.  Hans  Egede  resettles  Greenland. 
1731.  Hadley  invented  the  sextant. 
1731.  Krupishef  sails  round  Kamtschatka. 
1 73 1.  Paulutski  travels  round  the  north-east  corner  of  Si- 
beria. 
1735-37.  Maupertuis  measures  an  arc  of  the  meridian. 
1739-44.  Lord  George  Anson  circumnavigates  the  globe. 

1740.  Varenne   de    la   Veranderye    discovers   the   Rocky 

Mountains. 

1 741.  Behring  discovers  his  strait. 

1742.  Chelyuskin  discovers  his  cape. 


ANNALS  OF  DISCOVERY. 


X93 


1743-44.  La  Condamine  explores  the  Amazon. 
1745-61.  Bourguignon  d'Anville  produces  his  maps. 
1761-67.  Carsten  Niebuhr  surveys  Arabia. 

1764.  John  Byron  surveys  the  Falkland  Islands. 

1767.  First  appearance  of  the  Nautical  Almanac. 

1765.  Harrison  perfects  the  chronometer. 

1768.  Carteret  discovers  Pitcairn  Island,  and  sails  through 

St.  George's  Channel,  between  New  Britain  and 

New  Ireland. 
1768-71.  Cook's  first  voyage  ;    discovers    New   Zealand  and 

east   coast   of  Australia ;    passes   through    Torres 

Strait. 
1769-71.  Hearne  traces  river  Coppermine. 
1769-71.  James  Bruce  re-discovers  the  source  of  the  Blue  Nile 

in  Abyssinia. 
1770.  Liakhoff  discovers  the  New  Siberian  Islands. 
1771-72.  Pallas  surveys  West  and  South  Siberia. 
1776-79.  Cook's  third  voyage  ;  surveys  North-West  Passage  ; 

discovers  Ovvhyhee  (Hawaii),  where  he  was  killed. 
1785-88.  La  Perouse    survey    north-east   coast   of  Asia   and 

Japan,  discovers  Saghalien,  and  completes  delim- 
itation of  the  ocean. 
1785-94.  Billings  surveys  East  Siberia. 
1787-88.  Lesseps  surveys  Kamtschatka  and  crosses  the  Old 

World  from  east  to  west. 
1788.  The  African  Association  founded. 
1789-93.  Mackenzie  discovers  his  river,  and  first  crosses  North 

America. 

1792.  Vancouver  explores  his  island. 

1793.  Browne  reaches  Darfur,  and  reports  the  existence  of 

the  White  Nile. 
1796.   Mungo  Park  reaches  the  Niger. 

1796.  Lacerda  explores  Mozambique. 

1797.  Bass  discovers  his  strait. 

1799-1804.  Alexander  von  Humboldt  explores  South  America. 
1804-4.  Lewis  and  Clarke  explore  the  basin  of  the  Missouri. 
1800-4.  Flinders  coasts  south  coast  of  Australia. 
1805-7.  Pike  explores  the  country  between  the  sources  of  the 
Mississippi  and  the  Red  River. 
1810-29.   Malte-Brun  publishes  his  G^os;raphie  Univer&elle. 
1814.  Evans  discovers  Lachlan  and  Macquarie  rivers. 

1816.  Captain  Smith  discovers  South  Shetland  Isles. 
1817-20.  Spix  and  Martins  explore  Brazil. 

1817.  First  edition  of  Stieler's  atlas. 


194  ANNALS  OF  DISCOVERS. 

1817-22.  Captain  King  maps  the  coast-line  of  Australia. 
1819-22.  Franklin,  Back,  and  Richardson  attempt  the  North- 

West  Passage  by  land.  ' 
1 8 19.  Parry  discovers   Lancaster  Strait  and  reaches  114* 

W. 
1820-23.  Wrangel  discovers  his  land. 

1821.  Bellinghausen    discovers     Peter     Island,    the    most 

southerly  land  then  known. 

1822.  Denham  and  Clapperton  discover  Lake  Tchad,  and 

visit  Sokoto. 
1822-23.  Scoresby  explores  the  coast  of  East  Greenland. 

1823.  Weddell  reaches  74.15°  S. 

1826.  Major  Laing  is  murdered  at  Timbuctoo. 

1827.  Parry  reaches  82,45"  N. 
1827.  Ren6  Caillie  visits  Timbuctoo. 

1828-31.  Captain  Sturt  traces  the  Darling  and  the  Murray. 
1829-33.  Ross  attempts   the  North-West  Passage;  discovers 
Boothia  Felix. 

1830.  Royal  Geographical  Society  founded,  and  next  year 

united  with  the  African  Association. 
1831-35.   Schomburgk  explores  Guiana. 

1831.  Captain  Biscoe  discovers  Enderby  Land. 
1833.  Back  discovers  Great  Fish  River. 

1835-49.  Junghuhn  explores  Java. 

1837.  T.    Simpson    coasts  along  the   north  mainlaind  of 
North  America  1277  miles. 
1838-40.  Wood  explores  the  sources  of  the  Oxus. 
1838-40.  Dumont   d'Urville    discovers   Louis-Philippe  Land 
and  Ad^lie  Land. 
1839.  Balleny  discovers  his  island. 

1839.  Count  Strzelecki  discovers  Gipps'  Land. 

1840.  Captain  Sturt  travels  in  Central  Australia. 
1840-42.  James  Ross  reaches  78.10°    S.  ;  discovers  Victoria 

Land,  and  the  volcanoes  Erebus  and  Terror. 

1841.  Eyre  traverses  south  of  Western  Australia. 
1842-62.  E.  F.  Jomard's  Monuments  de  la    G^ographie  pub^ 

lished. 
1843-47.  Count  Castelnau  traces  the  source  of  the  Paraguay. 

1844.  Leichhardt  explores  Southern  Australia. 

1845.  Hue  explores  Tibet. 

1845.  Petermann's  Mittheilungen  first  published. 
1845-47.  Franklin's  last  voyage. 

1846.  First  edition  of  K.  v.  Spruner's  Historische  Hand- 

atlas. 


ANNALS  OF  DISCOVERY.  195 

1847.  J.  Rae  connects  Hudson's  Bay  with  east  coast  of 

Boothia. 

1848.  Leichhardt  attempts  to  traverse  Australia,  and  dis- 

appears. 
1849-56.  Livingstone  traces  the  Zambesi  and  crosses  South 

Africa. 
1850-54.   M'Clure  succeeds  in  the  North-West  passage. 
1850-55.  Barth  explores  the  Soudan. 

1853.  Dr.  Kane  explores  Smith's  Sound. 

1854.  Rae  hears  news  of  the  Franklin  expedition  from  the 

Eskimo. 

1854-65.  Faidherbe  explores  Senegambia. 

1856-57.  The   brothers   Schlagintweit    cross  the    Himalayas, 
Tibet,  and  Kuen  Lun. 

1856-59.  Du  Chaillu  travels  in  Central  Africa. 

1857-59.  M'Clintock  discovers  remains  of  the  Franklin  expe- 
dition, and  exf. lores  King  William  Land. 

•     1858.  Burton  and  Speke   discover  Lake  Tanganyika,  and 
Speke  sees  Lake  Victoria  Nyanza. 

1858-64.  Livingstone  traces  Lake  Nyassa. 
1859.  Valikhanoff  reaches  Kashgar. 
i860.  Burke  travels  from  Victoria  to  Carpentaria. 
i860.  Grant    and   Speke,    returning   from    Lake   Victoria 
Nyanza,  meet  Baker  coming  up  the  Nile. 

1861-62.  M'Douall  Stuart  traverses  Australia  from  south  to 
north. 

1863.  W.  G.  Palgrave  explores  Central  and  Eastern  Arabia. 

1864.  Baker  discovers  Lake  Albert  Nyanza. 

1868.  Nordenskiold  reaches  his   highest  point  in  Green- 
land, 81.42°. 
1868-71.  Ney  Elias  traverses  Mid-China. 
1868-74.  John  Forrest  penetrates  from  Western   to  Central 

Australia. 
1869-71.  Schweinfurth  explores  the  Southern  Soudan. 
1869-74.  Nachtigall  explores  east  of  Tchad. 

1870.  Fedchenko  discovers  Transalai,  north  of  Pamir. 

1770.  Douglas  Forsyth  reaches  Yarkand. 
1871-88.  The  four  explorations  of  Western  China  by  Prjevalsky. 
1872-73.   Payer  and  Weiprecht  discover  Franz  Josef  Land. 
1872-76.  H.  M.  S.  Challenget  examines  the  bed  of  the  ocean. 
1872-76.  Ernest  Giles  traverses  North-West  Australia. 

1873.  Colonel  Warburion  traverses  Australia  from  east  to 
west. 

1873.  Livingstone  discovers  Lake  Moero. 


tgS  ANNALS  OF  DISCOVERY. 

1874-75.  Lieut.  Cameron  cro=;ses  equatorial  Africa. 
1875-94.  ifilis^e  Reclus  publishes  his  Giographie  UniverselU. 
1876.  Albert   Markham  reaches   83.20°  N.   on  the  Nares 

expedition. 
1876-77.  Stanley  traces  the  course  of  the  Congo. 
1878-82.  The  Pundit  Krishna  traces  the  course  of  the  Yang- 

tse,  Pekong,  and  Brahmaputra. 
1878-79.  Nordenskiold  solves  the  North-East  Passage  along 

the  north  coast  of  Siberia. 
1878-84.  Joseph  Thomson  explores  East-Central  Africa. 
1878-85.  Serpa  Pinto  twice  crosses  Africa. 
1879-82.  The  Jeannette  passes  through  Behring  Strait  to  the 

mouth  of  the  Lena. 
1880.  Leigh  Smith  surveys  south  coast  of  Franz  Josef  Land. 
1880-82.  Bonvalot  traverses  the  Pamirs. 
1881-87.  Wissmann  twice  crosses  Africa,  and  discovers  the  left 

affluents  of  the  Congo. 
1883.  Lockwood,  on   the  Greely    Mission,  reaches  83.23° 

N.,  north  cape  of  Greenland. 

1886.  Francis  Gamier  explores  the  coast  of  the  Mekong. 

1887.  Younghusband  travels  from  Pekin  to  Kashmir, 
1887-89.  Stanley  conducts  the  Emin  Pasha  Relief  Expedition 

across  Africa,  and  discovers  the  Pigmies,  and  the 
Mountains  of  the  Moon. 

1888.  F.  Nansen  crosses  Greenland  from  east  to  west. 
1888-89.  Captain  Binger  traces  the  bend  of  the  Niger. 

1889.  The  brothers  Grjmailo  explore  Chinese  Turkestan. 
1889-90.  Bonvalot  and  Prince  Henri  d'Orleans  traverse  Tibet. 

1890.  Selous  and  Jameson  explore  Mashonaland. 
1892.  Peary  proves  Greenland  an  island. 

1893-97.  Dr.  Sven  Hedin  explores  Chinese  Turkestan,  Tibet, 

and  Mongolia. 
1894-95.  C.  E.  Borchgrevink  visits  Antarctica. 

1896.  Captain  Bottego  explores  Somaliland. 

1899.  Abruzzi  reaches  farthest  north  (86°  33'). 

1905.  Roald  Amundsen  completes  the  Northwest  Passage 

by  boat. 

1906.  Amundsen  locates  the  magnetic  North  Pole. 
1908-12.  V.  Stefanssen  proves  Arctic  maps  wrong ;  discovers 

race  of  Eskimos  hitherto  unknown. 
1909.  Peary  discovers  the  North  Pole. 

191 1.  Amundsen  discovers  the  South  Pole. 

191 2.  Scott  reaches  the  South  Pole  and  perishes  on  his 

return  journey. 

191 3.  Dr.    Hudson    Stuck    reaches    the    summit   of    Mt. 

McKinley. 


ANNALS  OF  DISCOVERY.  1 97 


EUROPE. 


Great  Britain. — b.c.  450.  Himilco.  Circa  333.  Py- 
theas.     60-54.     Caesar. 

France. — b.c.  circa  600.    Marseilles  founded.    57.   Caesar. 
Russia. — A.D.  1554.     Richard  Chancellor. 
Baltic. — A.D.  890.     Wulfstan  and  Othere. 
Iceland. — a.d.  861.    Naddod. 

ASIA. 

India. — b.c.  332.  Alexander.  330.  Nearckus.  Circa 
300.  Megasthenes.  A.D.  400-14.  Fa-hien.  518-21.  Hoei- 
Sing  and  Sung-Yun.  540.  Cosmas  Indicopleustes.  629-46. 
Hiouen-Tshang.  671-95.  I-tsing.  1159-73.  Benjamin  of 
Tudela.  1304-78.  Ibn  Batuta.  1327-72.  Mandeville.  1328. 
Jordanus  of  Severac.  1328-49.  John  de  Marignolli.  1419-40. 
Nicolo  Conti.  1442-44.  Abd-ur-Razzak.  1468-74.  Athan- 
asius  Nikitin.  1487.  Pedro  de  Covilham.  1494-99.  Hiero- 
nimo  di  Santo  Stefano.     1503-8.  Ludovico  di  Varthema. 

Farther  India. — a.d.  1503.  Ludovico  di  Varthema. 
1509.     Lopes  di  Sequira.     1886.  Francis  Gamier. 

China. — a.d.  851-916.  Sulaiman  and  Abu  Zaid.  1292. 
John  of  Monte  Corvino.  1316-30.  Odorico  di  Pordenone. 
1328-49.  John  de  Marignolli.  1537-58.  Ferdinand  Mendez 
Pinto.  1868-71.  NeyEIias.  1871-88.  Prjevalsky.  1878-82. 
Pundit  Krishna.  1889.  Grjmailo  brothers.  1896.  Prince 
Henri  d'Orleans. 

Japan. — a.d.  1542.  Antonio  de  Mota.  1785-88.  La 
Perouse. 

Arabia.— a.d.  1671-67.  Carsten  Niebuhr.  1863.  Pal- 
grave. 

Persia. — b.c.  332.  Alexander,  a.d.  1468-74.  Athanasius 
Nikitin. 

Mongolia. — a.d.  1255.  Ruysbroek  (Rubruquis).  1260- 
71.  Nicolo  and  Maffeo  Polo.  1271.  Marco  Polo.  1893-97. 
Dr.  Sven  Hedin. 

Tibet.— a.d.  1845.  Hue.  1856-7.  Schlagintweit.  1878. 
Pundit  Krishna.  1887,  Younghusband.  1889-90.  Bonvalot 
and  Prince  Henri  d'Orleans.     1893-97.    Dr.  Sven  Hedin. 

Central  Asia. — a.d.  1558.  Anthony  Jenkinson.  1642. 
Wasilei  Pojarkof.  1838-40.  Wood.  1859.  Valikhanoff.  1870. 
Douglas  Forsyth.  1870.  Fedchenko.  1880.  Bonvalot.  1893, 
Littledale. 


198  ANNALS  OF  DISCOVERY. 

Siberia. — a.d.  1579.    Timovief.     1639.  Kupiloff.     1644- 

50.    Staduchin.      1648.    Dshineif.      1701.  Sinpopoff.     1731. 

Paulutski.  1742.  Chelyuskin.  1771-72.  Pallas.  1785-94. 
Billings. 

Kamtschatka. — a.d.  1696.  Russians.  1731.  Krupishef. 
1787-88.  Lesseps. 

AFRICA. 

A.D.  circa  450.  Hanno.  1420.  Zarco.  1462.  Pedro  de 
Cintra.  1484.  Diego  Cam.  i486.  Bartholomew  Diaz.  1497. 
Vasco  da  Gama.  1520.  Alvarez.  1549.  Bareto  and  Homera. 
1590.  Battel.  1596.  Payz.  1618.  Thompson.  1623.  Lobo. 
1645.  Italian  Capuchins.  1769-71.  Bruce.  1793.  Browne. 
1796.  Mungo  Park.  1796.  Lacerda.  1822.  Denham  and 
Clapperton.  1826.  Laing.  1827.  Rene  Caillie.  1849-73. 
Livingstone.  1850-55.  Barth.  1854-65.  Faidherbe.  1856- 
59.  Du  Chaillu.  1858.  Burton  and  Speke.  i860.  Grant  and 
Spake.  1864.  Baker.  1869-71.  Schweinfurth.  1869-74. 
Nachtigall.  1874-75.  Cameron.  1876-89.  Stanley.  1878- 
84.  Thomson.  1878-85.  Serpa  Pinto.  1881-87.  Wissmann. 
1888-89.  Binger.  1890.  Selous  and  Jameson.  1891-92. 
Monteil.  1896.  Bottego.  1896.  Donaldson  Smith.  1897. 
Foa. 

NORTH  AMERICA. 

A.D.  499.  Hoei-Sin.  Circa  1000.  Lyef.  1497,  151 7-  John 
and  Sebastian  Cabot.  1500.  Corte  Real.  15 13.  Ponce  de 
Leon.  1524.  Verazzano.  1532.  Cortez.  1534.  Cartier. 
1539.  Ulloa.  1542.  Cabrillo.  1576.  Frobisher.  1586. 
Davis.  1592.  Juan  de  Fuca.  1608.  Champlain.  1609,  10. 
Hudson.  1631.  Fox.  1682.  La  Salle.  1740.  Varenne  de  la 
Veranderye.  1741.  Behring.  1789-93.  Mackenzie.  1792. 
Vancouver.  1800-4.  Lewis  and  Clarke.  1 805-7.  Pike 
1837.    Simpson. 

SOUTH  AMERICA. 

A.D.  1498.  Columbus.  1499-1501.  Amerigo  Vespucci. 
1499.  Pinzon.  1500.  Pedro  Cabral.  1517.  Juan  Diaz  de 
Solis.  1519-20.  Magellan.  1531.  Francisco  Pizarro.  1535. 
D'Almagro.  1536.  Gonsalo  Pizarro.  1541.  Orellana.  1572. 
Juan  Fernandez.  1580.  Dutch  in  Guiana.  1615.  Lemaire. 
1743-44.  La  Condamine.  1764.  John  Byron.  1 799-1 804. 
Humboldt.  1817-20.  Spix  and  Martius.  1831-35.  Schom- 
buigk.    1843-47.  Castelasiu* 


ANNALS  OF  DISCOVERY.  199 


CENTRAL  AMERICA. 

A.D.  1502.  Columbus.  1 5 13.  Vasco  Nunez  de  Balbao. 
1518.  Grijalva.     1519.  Fernando  Cortez.     1519.  Guray. 

AUSTRALIA. 

A.D.  1605.  Torres.  1606.  Quiros.  1616.  Hartog.  1619. 
Edel  and  Houtman,  1622.  The  Leeuwin.  1627.  Nuyts. 
1699.  Dampier.  1700.  Cook.  1797.  Bass.  1 801-4.  Flin- 
ders. 1814.  Evans.  1817-22.  King.  1828-40.  Sturt.  1839. 
Strzelecki.  1841.  Eyre.  1844-48.  Leichhardt.  i860.  Burke. 
1861-62.  MacDouall  Stuart.  1868-74.  Forrest.  1872-76. 
Giles.     1873.  Warburton,     1897.  Carnegie. 

NEW  ZEALAND. 
A.D.  1642.  Tasman.     1643.  Brouwer.     1768-79.  Cook. 

POLYNESIA. 

A.D.  1512.  Francisco  Serrao.  1520,  21.  Magellan.  1527. 
Saavedra.  1542.  Gaetano.  1542.  Ruy  Lopez  de  Villalobos. 
1543,  Ortez  de  Retis.  1567-98.  Alvaro  Mendaila.  1599. 
Houtman.  1643.  Tasman.  1768.  Carteret.  1776-79.  Cook. 
£835-49.    Junghuhn.     1890.    Macgregor. 

NORTH  POLE. 

A.D.  circa  900.  Gunbiom.  985.  Eric  the  Red.  1553. 
Willoughby.  1596.  Barentz.  1603.  Bennett.  161 1.  Jan 
Mayen.  1616.  Baffin.  1721.  Egede.  1769-71.  Hearne. 
1819-22.  Franklin,  Back,  and  Richardson.  1819-27.  Parry. 
1820-23.  Wrangel.  1922-23.  Scoresby.  1829-33.  Ross. 
1833.  Back.  1845-47.  Franklin.  1847-54.  Rae.  1850-54. 
M'Clure.  1853.  Kane.  1S57-59.  M'Clintock.  1868-79. 
Nordenskiold.  1872-73.  Payer  and  Weiprecht.  1876.  Mark- 
ham.  1879-82.  The  Jeannette.  1880.  Leigh  Smith.  1883. 
Lockwood.  1888-97.  Nansen.  1892  ;  1 898-1902 ;  1907-9. 
Peary.  1894-96.  Jackson-Harmsworth  expedition.  1899- 
1900.  Abruzzi.     1901-02.  Baldwin-Zeigler  expedition. 

SOUTH    POLE. 

A.D.  1816.  Capt.  Smith.  1821.  Bellinghausen.  1823. 
Weddell.  1831.  Biscoe.  1838-40.  Dumont  d'Urville.  1839. 
3alleny,    1840-42.    James  Ross,     j  894-1900,  BorchgrcviRk» 


200  ANNALS  OF  DISCOVERY. 

1901-4.      Otto    Nordenskiold.        1901-4 ;      1910-12.      Scott. 
1907-9.  Shackleton.     1911-12.  Amundsen. 

CIRCUMNAVIGATORS. 

A.D.  1522.  Sebastian  del  Cano.  1577-79.  Drake.  1739-44. 
Lord  George  Anson. 

ATLANTIC  OCEAN. 

A.D.  1400.  Jehan  Bethencours.  1432.  Cabral.  1.442.  Nuno 
Tristao.  147 1.  Pedro  d'Escobar.  1471.  Fernando  Po.  1492- 
93.  Columbus.  1501.  Juan  di  Nova.  1501.  Tristan  d'Acun- 
ha.     1502.  Bermudez. 

INDIAN  OCEAN. 
A.D.  1505.    Mascarenhas. 

PROGRESS  OF  GEOGRAPHICAL  SCIENCE. 

B.C.  570.  Anaximander  of  Miletus.  501.  Hecataeus  of 
Miletus.  446.  Herodotus.  Circa  200.  Eratosthenes,  icx). 
Marinus  of  Tyre.  20.  Strabo.  Before  12.  Agrippa.  A.D. 
150.  Ptolemy,  230.  Peutinger  Table.  776.  Beatus.  884. 
Ibn  Khordadbeh.  912-30,  Mas'udi,  921.  Ahmed  Ibn  Foz- 
lan.  969,  Ibn  Haukal.  iiii.  Water-compass,  1154.  Ed- 
risi.  Circa  1180.  Alexander  Neckam.  1280.  Hereford 
map.  1284.  Ebstorf  map,  1290,  The  normal  Portulano, 
1320.  Flavio  Gioja.  1339.  Dulcert.  1351.  Medicean  Portu- 
lano. 1375.  Cresquez.  1419.  Prince  Henry  the  Navigator. 
1457.  Fra  Mauro.  1474.  Toscanelli.  1478.  2nd  ed.  Ptolemy. 
1492.  Behaim,  1500,  Juan  de  la  Cosa,  1507-13,  Waldsee- 
miiller.  1520.  Schoner.  1538.  Mercator.  1544.  Munster. 
1556-72.  Laperis,  1573.  Ortelius.  1592.  Molyneux  globe. 
1598,  Hakluyt.  1630,  Ferro  meridian  fixed,  1638.  Blaeu. 
1645.  Sanson.  1700.  Delisle.  1718.  Jesuit  map  of  China. 
1731.  Hadley.  1735-37.  Maupertuis.  1745-61,  Bourguignon 
d'Anville.  1765.  Harrison.  1767.  Nautical  Almanac.  1788. 
African  Association.  1810-29.  Malte-Brun,  18 17,  Stieler. 
1830.  Royal  Geographical  Society  founded.  1842,  Jomard, 
1845.  Petermann.  1846.  Spruner.  1875-94.  Elisee  Reclus. 
1872-76.  The  Challenger,, 


INDEX. 


Abn   zi,  Duke  of,  185,  iqq. 

Ab   s.si:iia,  'i,^,  156,  164. 

Ac-'die.  134. 

Africa,  31;  circumnavigation  of, 
85;   exploration  of,   153. 

Alaska,  126,  137. 

Albert   Nyanza,    Lake,    159. 

Albuquerque,  Af?onso  de,  94, 
no. 

Aldrich,  Pelham,  Arctic  ex- 
plorer, 180. 

Alexander  the  Great,  24.  28,  37. 

Alexander  VI.,  Pope,  bull  on 
discoveries,  96,  132. 

Alexandria,  26,  37;  commercial 
importance  of,  79,  82. 

Almegro,  Diego  de,  130,  131. 

Amazon,  discovered,  108 ;  ex- 
plored, 131. 

America,  discovery  of,  105 ;  ori- 
gin of  name,  log ;  partition  of, 
128. 

Amerigo  Vespucci,  108,  118. 

Amundsen,  Roald,  Antarctic  ex- 
plorer, 185. 

Anaximander,  21. 

Andree,  S.  A.,  185. 

Anthropophagi,  47. 

Antilla,  Island  of,  102. 

Antipodes,  47. 

Arabs,    54;    commerce   of,   82. 

Aristotle,  26. 

Armenia  conquered  by  Mon- 
gols, 63. 

Ascension  discovered,  94. 

Asia,  28,  45,  78. 

Asia  Minor,  18,  33,  36,  40. 

Assyrians,  34,  35. 

Astrolabe  perfected  by  Henry 
the  Navigator,  85. 


Atahualpa,  Inca,  131. 

Atlantis,  Plato's,  98. 

Australia,     123;     exploration    of, 

139;    D'Anville's    map    of,    144; 

first  English  settlement,   149. 


B. 


Babylonians,  19,  22,  23,  35. 

Back,  C.  J.,  Arctic  explorer,  173. 

Balifin,  William,  discoveries  of, 
122,  169,  180. 

Baker,  Sir  Samuel,  explorations 
in  Africa,  159,  160. 

Balboa,  Vasco  Nunez  de,  dis- 
covers Pacific  Ocean,  128. 

Bangweolo,  Lake,  discovered, 
160. 

Barentz,  William,  122,  169. 

Barrett,  William,  list  of  staples 
imported  from  the  Orient,  80. 

Barth,  African  explorer.   158. 

Bass,  Dr.,  explorations  in  Aus- 
tralia, 150. 

Batavia,  Java,  founded.  123. 

Beechey,  Captain,  Arctic  ex- 
plorer, 172. 

Behaim's.  Martin,  globe,  89,  104. 

Belcher,  Sir  Edward,  Arctic  ex- 
plorer, 177. 

Belgium,  26. 

Bering  Vitus,  explorations  of, 
118,  126,  137. 

Bible,  influence  of,  44. 

Biorn  discovc-s  Vinland,  58. 

Black  Sea,  23. 

Borchgrevink,  C.  E.,  Antarctic 
explorer,  184. 

Borneo,  Portuguese  in,  114. 

Botany  Bay,  147,  150. 

201 


202 


INDEX. 


Brazil,  discoveries  in,  io8;  Por- 
tuguese in,  93,   132. 

Britain,  25,  28,  42,  53,  57. 

Bruce,  James,  African  explorer, 
154,  156. 

Burgundy,  kingdom  of,  53. 

Burke,   Australian   explorer,   152. 

Burton,  Sir  Richard,  explora- 
tions in  Africa,   159. 

Byzantium,  19.  See  Constanti- 
nople. 

C. 

Cabot,  John,  120,  133. 

Cabot,  Sebastian,  120,  133. 

Cabral,  Pedro  Alvarez,  Portu- 
guese navigator,  93. 

Cadmosto,  Alvez,  Venetian 
merchant,  88. 

Caesar,  40. 

Caillie,  Rene,  explorations  in 
Africa,  158. 

California,  discovered  by  Cortes, 
130;  becomes  a  part  of  United 
States,  137. 

Calcutta,  92. 

Calicut.     See    Calcutta. 

Cam,  Diego,  Portuguese  navi- 
gator, 88. 

Cambyses,  36. 

Canada,   exploration  of,  120,   133. 

Canary  Islands,  31. 

Cano,  Juan  Sebastian  del.  See 
Del  Cano. 

Cape  Bojador,  86. 

Cape  Branco  discovered,  86. 

Cape  Colony,  123. 

Cape  of  Good  Hope,  90,  91. 

Cape  Verde  discovered,   86. 

Cape  Verde  Islands  discovered, 
88. 

Caravan  routes,  77,  78. 

Carpentaria,  Gulf  of,  140,  142. 

Carthaginians,  28,  39. 

Carteret,  Sir  George,  134. 

Cartier,  Jacques,  explores  St. 
Lawrence,  120,  133. 

Cathay,  64.     See  China. 

Ceylon,  28,  55,  94. 

Chad,  Lake,  157,  158. 

Chaldseans,  35. 

Champlain,  Samuel  de,  discov- 
eries of,  120;  settles  Quebec, 
134- 

Chancellor,  Richard,  reaches 
Archangel,  uo,  124, 169. 


Chili  conquered  by  Almegro,  131. 

China,  28,  55,  63,  65,  71,  73,  96, 
125. 

Chinchiz  Khan,  founder  of  Mon- 
gol Empire,  63. 

"  Christian  Topography  "  of 
Cosmas,  47. 

Chronometers,  perfection  of,  146. 

Lipangu.     See  Japan. 

Clapperton,  Lieut.,  explorations 
in  Africa,  157. 

"  Climates  "  of  Ptolemy,  32. 

Collinson,  Capt.  R.,  Arctic  ex- 
plorer, 176. 

Columbia  River,  explored,  138. 

Columbus,  Christopher,  voyages 
and  discoveries  of,  99,  118;  in 
Portugal,  90;  and  Cabral,  93. 

Commerce  of  Middle  Ages,  80; 
value  of  roads  to,  64. 

Compass,  invention  of,  59,  82; 
variability  of,  discovered  by 
Columbus,  105. 

Congo  Free  State,  162. 

Congo  River,  discovered,  89;  ex- 
ploration  of,   IS4,   157,   160. 

Constantinople,  58;  commercial 
importance  of,  79.  See  Byzan- 
tium. 

Cook,  James,  voyages  of,  118, 
145,  149- 

Coppermine  River,  137,   172. 

Corsica,  39. 

Cortes,  Hernando,  13;  conquest 
of  Mexico,  128. 

Cosmas  Indicopleustes,  47. 

Covilham,  Pedro  di,  Portuguese 
explorer,  89,  91. 

Cresquez,  60. 

Crozier,   Arctic  explorer,   174. 

Crvisades,  55,  63. 

Cuba,   Columbus  in,   106. 

Cuzco,  Inca  capital  of  Peru,  131, 

Cynocephali,  49. 

Cyprus,  18. 

Cyrus  the  Great,  36. 

Cyrus  the  younger,  36. 


D. 

Da    Gama,    Vasco,    voyages    of, 

91,  94- 
Danube,  23. 
D'Anville's    map    of    Australigi, 

HO,  144. 


INDEX. 


203 


Davis,  John,  voyages  of,  121, 
169. 

Delaware  River,  settlements  on, 
134. 

Del  Cano,  Juan  Sebastian;  cir- 
cumnavigator, 114,  130;  coat  of 
arms  granted  to,   116. 

De  Leon,  Ponce,  discovers 
Florida,  130. 

Denbam,  Major,  explorations  in 
Africa,  157. 

De    Nuyts,    explores    Australia, 

D'Escobar,     Pedro,     Portuguese 

navigator,  88. 
Diaz,    Bartholomew,    Portuguese 

navigator,  89. 
Discovery,  motives  for,  14. 
Dulcert,  Angelico,  60. 
Duquesne,  Fort,  136. 
D'Urville,     Dumont,     Antarctic 

explorer,  173. 
Dutch.    See  Holland. 


Earth,  sphericity  of,  26;  denied 
by  Cosmas,  47. 

East  India  Company,  123. 

Edels,  Jan,  explores  Australia, 
142. 

Edrisi,  56. 

Egypt,  18,  23,  33,  36,  159- 

Elbe,  the  river,  26. 

Emmanuel,  King  of  Portugal, 
90. 

Emin  Pasha,  165. 

England,  discoveries  and  ex- 
plorations in  America,  119, 
133;  East  Indian  policy,   123. 

Eratosthenes,  26,  37,  85. 

Erythrean  Sea.     See  Red  Sea. 

Estotiland,  58. 

Etrurians,  38. 

Euphrates,  23,  33. 

Euxine.    See  Black  Sea. 

Evans,  explorations  in  Austra- 
lia, 152. 

F. 

Ferdinand  and  Isabella  assist 
Columbus,  103. 

Flinders,  Australian  explorer, 
150. 

Forrest,  John,  Austr?ilmn  ex- 
plorer, 153, 


Fortunatce  Insulce.  See  Canary 
Islands. 

France,  53;  discoveries  and  ex- 
plorations in  America,  119,  133. 

Franklin,  Sir  John,  Arctic  ex- 
plorations, 171,  172,  174. 

Frobisher,  Martin,  voyages  of, 
120,  169. 


Gambia,  River,  discovered,  88. 

Ganges,  33. 

Gengis     Khan.       See     Chinchiz 

Khan. 
Genoa   as   a   commercial   center, 

Germany,  28,  42,  53. 

Gilbert,  Sir  Humphrey,  explora- 
tions of,  121. 

Giles,  Ernest,  Australian  ex- 
plorer, 152. 

Gioja,  Flavio,  improves  com- 
pass, 59. 

Gnomon,  invention  of,  22. 

Goa  captured  by  Portuguese,  94, 

Gog  and  Magog,  46,  64. 

Gomez,  Diogo,  Portuguese  nav- 
igator, 88. 

Gordon,  General,  160,  165. 

Gorillas,  25. 

Grant,  African  explorer,  154,  159, 

Greece,  17,  18.  19,  36. 

Greely,  Lieut.  A.  W.,  Arctic  ex- 
plorations, 182. 

Greenland,  58,  120,  170. 

Grinnell,  Arctic  explorer,  180. 

Gryphons,  49. 

Gulliver's  Travels,  144. 

H. 

Hadley,  inventor  of  sextant,  145. 

Hakluyt's  "  English  Voyages 
and  Navigations,"  80. 

Hall,  Arctic  explorer,   180. 

Hanno,  25. 

Harrison,  John,  chronometer 
maker,  146. 

Hartog,  Dirk,  explores  Austra- 
lia, 142. 

Hawaii,   Cook  murdered  at,   149. 

Hayes,  Arctic  explorer,  180. 

Hayti,  Columbus  in,  106. 

Hearne,  explorer,  137. 

Hebrews,  34. 

Hecat?«s,  2J1. 


204 


INDEX 


Henry  the  Navigator,  Prince, 
62,  y2,  84. 

Hereford,  map,  49. 

Herodotus,  18,  22,  21,  38,  155. 

Hesiod,  18. 

Hippalus,  25. 

Hittites,  36. 

Hobson,  Arctic  explorer,  178. 

Holland,  26;  discoveries  in 
America,  119;  commercial  su- 
premacy of,  122;  settlement  of 
New  Netherlands,  134;  ex- 
ploration of  Australia,   139. 

Homer,  18. 

Honduras,  explored  by  Cortes, 
129. 

Houtman,  Cornelius,  Dutch 
navigator,  122. 

Hudson  Bay  Company,  136. 

Hudson  Bay  discovered,  121. 

Hudson,   Henry,  voyages  of,  121. 

Hudson  River  discovered,  i.^i; 
settlements  on,  134. 

Hudson  Strait  discovered,  121. 

Huns,  53. 

Hyperboreans,  18. 

I. 

Ibn  Batuta,  travels  of,  71. 

Iceland,  57. 

lerne.     See  Ireland. 

India,  24,  36,  65,  J2,  80;  Portu- 
guese in,  92,  94;  routes  to,  78, 
85. 

Indo-China,  28. 

Indus,  2z. 

Inglefield,  Arctic  explorer,  180. 

Ireland,  or  lerne,  28,  57. 

Islam,  54. 

Ismail  Pasha,  Khedive  of 
Egypt,  159. 

Italy,  19,  2j„  38. 

Ivan,  Czar  of  Russia,  120,  124. 


Jackson,  F.,  Arctic  explorer,  183. 
Jacme,     Mestre,    navigator    and 

map-maker,  85. 
Japan,  69,  73,  96,  99,   102,   118. 
Java,  55. 
Jenkinson,      Anthony,      English 

traveller,  123,  124. 
Jerusalem  as  world's  centre,  44. 
Joao,   King  of   Portugal,   84,   89. 

90,  103. 


John  of  Montecorvino,  65. 
John  of  Flanocarpini,  64. 
Juan  dc  Fuca,   137. 


Kalliherey,  13. 
Kamtschatka  explored,  149. 
Kane,  Arctic  explorer,  180. 
Karakorum,    capital    of    Mongol 

Empire,  64. 
Khanbalig  (Pekin),  65. 
King,   Capt.    P.    P.,   explorations 

in  Australia,  150. 
Kublai  Khan,  65. 


Labrador,  58,  120. 

Ladrones,  the,  discovered  by 
Magellan,  114. 

Laing,  Major,  explorations  in 
Africa,  158. 

La  Perouse,  Frangois  de,  ex- 
plorations of,  149. 

La  Plata,  River,  discovered,  109; 
explored,  112. 

La  Salle,  Robert  de,  exploration 
of  Mississippi,  135. 

Latins,  38. 

Leichardt,  Australian  explorer, 
152. 

Lesseps,  M.,  explores  Kamts- 
chatka, 149. 

Lewis  and  Clarke,  explorations 
of,  iZT. 

Livingstone,  Dr.  David,  explo- 
rations in  Africa,  154.  158,  160, 
184. 

Lockwood,  Lieut,  Arctic  ex- 
plorer, 182. 

London  Company,  133,  134. 

Louisiana,  135. 

Louisiana  purchase,  136,  139. 

Lydia,  36. 

M. 

M'Clintock,  Arctic  explorer,  178. 

M'Clure,  Arctic  explorer,   176. 

Mackenzie   River,    137,    172. 

Mackenzie,   Sir  A.,   137. 

Madagascar,  discovered.  So,  94. 

Madeira,   discovered,  86. 

Magelhaens,  Fernao.  See  Ma- 
gellan. 

Magellan,  voyages  of,  06,  iiOi 
118. 

Magog,  46,  64. 


INDEX. 


205 


Malacca  seizad  by   Portuguese, 

94" 
Maldives  discovered,  94. 
Mandeville,      See    Maundeville, 

Sir  John. 
Mappi  mundi  of  Fra   Mauro,   70, 

88. 
Maps  invented  by  Anaximander, 

21. 
Marco  Polo.     See  Polo,  Marco. 
Markets,   first,   76. 
Marquette,  explorations  of,   135. 
Marseilles,  19. 

Maundeville,   Sir  John,   47,  65. 
Mauro,  Fra,  mappi  mundi  of,  70, 

88. 
Medes,  35. 

Mediterranean  Sea,  23. 
Megasthenes,  25,  38. 
Mexico,       58;       conquered       by 

Cortes,    128;    resources   of,    132. 
Middle  Ages,  the,  commerce  of, 

80;    geography    in,    43;    travel 

in,  63. 
Mississippi  River,   135. 
Moero,    Lake,    discovered,   160. 
Mohammedans,  54. 
Moluccas.     See   Spice  Islands. 
Mongol  Empire,  63. 
Monsters,  geographical,  46. 
Montezuma,  128. 

N. 

Nachtigall,  African  explorer, 
158. 

Nansen,  Dr.  Fridjof,  Arctic  ex- 
plorer, 182. 

Nares,  Sir  George,  Arctic  ex- 
plorer, 180. 

Nearchus,  25. 

Necho,  18. 

Nestorian  Church,   spread  of,  72. 

Netherlands.     See  Holland. 

New  Amsterdam,  134.  See  New 
York. 

Newfoundland,  58;  rediscovered 
by  Cabot,  120;  settlement  of, 
121;  fisheries  of,  133. 

New  Guinea  discovered,  T41. 

New  Hebrides  discovered,  141. 

New  Netherlands,  134. 

New  Orleans  founded,  135. 

New  South  Wales,  147. 

New  York,  121,  134. 

New  Zealand,  143,  147. 

Niger,  River,  24,  J2,  154,  157. 


Nile,  23,  24,  33,  153,  IS5,  159. 

Nordenskiold,  Baron,  60;  ex- 
plorations in  the  Arctic  re- 
gions, 180. 

Normandy,  57. 

Normans,  57. 

Norsemen,  49. 

North-East  Passage,  120,  122,  123, 
169,  180. 

North-West  Passage,  129,  148,  169, 
170. 

Norway,  57. 

Nova  Scotia,  settled,  134. 

Nova  Zembla,  170. 

Nyassa,  Lake,  discovered,   159. 


Odoric  of  Pordenone,  Friar, 
Archbishop  of  Pekin,  65. 

Okkodai,  son  of  Chinchiz  Khan, 
63- 

Orellana,  Francisco  de,  explores 
the  Amazon,  131. 


Pacific  Ocean,  discovered,  128; 
named,  114. 

Paradise,  terrestrial,  46. 

Park,  Mungo,  African  explorer, 
154,  157. 

Parry,  W.  E.,  Arctic  explorer, 
170. 

Parthia,  37. 

Payba,  Aflfonso  de,  Portuguese 
explorer.  89. 

Peabody,  Arctic  explorer,  180. 

Peary,  Lieutenant,  Arctic  explo- 
rations of,  182,  184,  185. 

Pekin  (Khanbalig),  65. 

Penn,  William,  134. 

Persia,  23,  35,  36,  37. 

Peru,  conquered  by  Pizarro, 
130;  resources  of,  132. 

Peutinger  Table,  50. 

Philip  of  Macedon,  37. 

Philippines,  discovery  of,  96,  114. 

Phoenicians,  discoveries  of  the, 
17,  39;  commerce  of,  77. 

Pigmies,  18,  24,  165. 

Pinto,  Major  Serpo,  explora- 
tions in  Africa,  163,  166. 

Pinzon,  Vincenta  Yanez,  discov- 
ers Amazon,  108. 

Pizarro,  Francisco,  explorations 
of,  128,  130. 


2o6 


INDEX. 


Pizarro,  Gonzales,  131. 

Plymouth  Company,  133,  134. 

Poland,  54. 

Polar  exploration,  169. 

Polo,  Marco,  travels  of,  62,  65, 
79- 

Polo,  Nicolo  and  Maffeo,  65. 

Pompey,  40. 

Poo,  Fernando,  discovered,  88. 

J^orto  Santo,  86. 

Port   Royal,   settlement  of,   13^. 

I'ortugal,  commercial  activity 
and  explorations  of,  84;  sup- 
planted by  Dutch  in  East  In- 
dies, 122;  explorations  of  Afri- 
ca, 153. 

Portulani,  60. 

Prester,   John,  y^,  89,  91. 

Priuli,   Venetian  chronicler,  92. 

Ptolemy,  Claudius,  28,  42,  55,  85. 

Pyrrhus  of  Epirus,  39. 

Pytheas,  25. 

Q. 

euebec  settled,  134. 
uiros,  Pedro  de,  141. 

R. 

Rae,  Dr.  J,,  Arctic  explorer,  174, 
176,  178. 

Raleigh,  Sir  Walter,  Guiana  ex- 
pedition,  132;  Virginia  colony, 

133- 

Red  Sea,  23. 

Rhodes,  Cecil,  166. 

Richardson,  Arctic  explorer,  172, 
176. 

Roads,  ancient  and  mediaeval, 
74;  importance  of,  42;  Roman, 
77- 

Rome,  15,  28,  38,  jy. 

Ross,  Sir  James  C,  Arctic  ex- 
plorer, 171,  173,  176. 

Ross,  John,  Arctic  explorer,  170, 
171. 

Rubruquis.  See  Ruysbroek, 
William. 

Russia,  22',  exploration  and  set- 
tlement  of   Siberia,    124. 

Rusticano  of  Pisa,  68. 

Ruysbroek,  William,  64. 


Saavedra,  Alvarro  de,  130. 
Saghalien,  La  Perouse  at,  i4p- 


St.     Augfustine,      Fla.,     founded, 

St.  Brandan,  Island  of,  102. 

St.  Helena,  discovery  of.  94. 

St.  Lawrence  River,  disc(n-ered, 
120;      French     settlements     on, 

^  134- 

Samnites,  38. 

San  Salvador,  Columbus  on,  105. 

Sardinia,  39. 

Scott,  Captain  R.  F.,  Antarctic 
explorer,  185. 

Sciapodes,  46. 

Scylax,  25. 

Scythia,  23. 

Serrao,  Francisco,  m. 

Sextant  invented,  145,  146. 

Seychelles,  discovered,  94. 

Shackleton,  Ernest,  Antarctic  ex- 
plorer, 185. 

Siberia,  exploration  and  settle- 
ment of,  124,  181. 

Sicily,  18,  39,  58. 

Sierra  Leone,  25, 

Sofala,  55. 

Soudan,  yz. 

Southern  Cross,  88. 

Spain,  40,  54,  96. 

Speke,  Captain,  African  ex- 
plorer, 159. 

Spice  Islands,  5.  94,  109,  no, 
III,   114,   115,   116,    122,   144. 

Spices,  80. 

Spitzbergen,  121,  122. 

Staaten  Land,  143,  147. 

Stanley,  H.  M.,  explorations  in 
Africa,  154,  160,  165,  184. 

Strabo,  28,  38. 

Sturt,  Captain,  exploration  in 
Australia,  152. 

Sumatra,  55. 

Swedish  settlements  in  America, 
134. 

T. 

Tabasco,    Cacique    of,    his    map, 

129. 
Tahiti,  discovered,   147. 
Tanganyika,     Lake,     discovered, 

159;  Livingstone  at,  160. 
Tartars,  46. 
Tasman,  Abel  Janssen,  explores 

Australia,  142. 
Thule,  26,  28. 
Tigris,  23,  33. 
Timbuctoo,  24,  72,  157,  158. 


INDEX. 


207 


Toscanelli,  service  to  Columbia, 

lOI. 

Trinidad,  106,  108. 
Tristan  da  Cunha  discovered,  91. 
Tristao,  Nuno,  Portuguese  navi- 
gator, 86. 
Tupaia,  14. 

U. 
Ung  Khan   (Prester  John),  7^. 


Vancouver,  138. 

Vandals,  53. 

Van  Dieman's  Land,  140,  142, 
150. 

Vasco  da  Gama.  See  Da  Gama, 
Vasco. 

Velasquez,  Diego,  governor  of 
Cuba,  128. 

Venezuela,  "  Little  Venice," 
named  by  Vespucci,    108. 

Venice,  as  centre  of  Ea'^tern 
trade,  83,  119;  effect  of  da 
Gama's  voyage  on,  92. 

Vespucci,  Amerigo,   108,  T18. 

Victoria  Nyanza,  Lake,  discov- 
ered, 159, 

Vikings,  57,  63. 

Villalobos,  Luis  Lopez  de,  dis- 
coveries in  Pacific  Ocean,   141. 

Vinland,  58. 

Visigoths,  53. 


W. 

Waldseemiiller,  Martin,  names 
America,  109. 

V\  atling  Island,  105. 

Weddell,  Antarctic  explorer,  173. 

\\  entworth,  Philip,  explorations 
in  Australia,  150. 

Wiggins,  Captain,  Arctic  ex- 
plorer, 181. 

Wilkes,  Captain,  Antarctic  ex- 
plorer, yz- 

Wills,   Australian   explorer,    152. 

Wolfe  captures  Quebec,   136. 


Xenophon,  24. 
Xerxes,  36. 


Y. 


Yacut,  Arabian  geographer,  56. 
Yule,    Sir    Henry,    appreciation 
of  Marco  Polo,  69. 


Zambesi  River,  exploration  of, 
154,  158. 

Zamorin,  King  of  Calicut,  92, 
94. 

Zarco,  Joao  Gonsalvez,  Portu- 
guese navigator,  86. 


(13) 


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